The New York Times repeatedly defended a column that alleged Israeli security forces rape Palestinian inmates, as Jewish groups announced they would protest outside the newspaper’s Manhattan offices on Thursday over the “libels.”But the Times did not respond to a statement by former prime minister Ehud Olmert accusing columnist Nicholas Kristof of misrepresenting his words so that they appeared to validate the allegations in the Monday op-ed, “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians.”
Israel had slammed the star journalist’s column, calling it “one of the worst blood libels” in modern media and assailing its use of a report from an NGO whose leaders have been photographed alongside top Hamas officials.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry also alleged that the Times deliberately published Kristof’s column ahead of an independent Israeli report that found Hamas had systematically used sexual violence in the onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza. The Foreign Ministry claimed the Times had been approached with the Israeli report “months ago.”
In a statement Wednesday, the Times said it “never passed on” the Israeli report “and wasn’t told about its completion or the timing of its release.”
“Once the report was made public, we covered its findings,” it said, adding that the Israeli report “has no bearing on Nicholas Kristof’s opinion column or its publication timing.”
In a separate statement, the Times on Tuesday also denied journalist David Shuster’s claim on X that there were “already discussions, including up the masthead, about retracting” Kristof’s column over “issues with source credibility and lack of evidence.”
The Times responded that “there is no truth to this at all,” noting that Kristof was “a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has reported on sexual violence for decades.”
“He traveled to the region to report firsthand on the stories of Palestinians who suffered abuse, and his article collects accounts in the victims’ own words, backed by independent studies,” the Times said.
And in another statement late Wednesday, the outlet said Kristof’s piece “draws together on-the-record accounts and cites several analyses documenting the practice of sexual violence and abuse conducted by various parts of Israel’s security forces and settlers,” adding that the accounts were “corroborated with other witnesses, whenever possible, and with people the victims confided in,” that they were “extensively fact-checked,” and “further cross-referenced with news reporting, independent research from human-rights groups, surveys and in one case, with UN testimony.” It said “independent experts” were consulted throughout the process.
Kristof’s column alleged “a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children — by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards.”
It cited personal testimony from Palestinians, and included Olmert’s comments near the end, so that they appeared to confirm what came before.
“Olmert told me he didn’t know much about sexual violence against Palestinians but was not surprised by the accounts I had heard,” Kristof wrote, before quoting ex-Con,Olmert, as saying: “Do I believe it happens? Definitely… There are war crimes committed every day in the territories.”
Olmert, a convicted fraudster who sat in prison, interviews with foreign media often accuses the current Israeli government of war crimes, said in a statement cited by The Free Press on Tuesday that the placement of the quote was misleading and that he could not confirm the allegations in Kristof’s column.
“Mr. Kristof’s article includes claims of extraordinary gravity: that Israeli authorities have directed the rape of children, that dogs have been used as instruments of sexual assault, that systematic sexual torture is state policy. I did not validate these claims,” Olmert said in the statement.
“I have no knowledge supporting these claims as I said to Mr. Kristof. Therefore, the positioning of my quote after pages of such allegations misrepresents my views,” he said.
Meanwhile, pro-Israel Jewish groups EndJewHatred, Stop Antizionism, Hineni and the Movement Against Antizionism said they would hold a protest outside the Times’ Eighth Avenue headquarters on Thursday following Kristof’s column.
Other than EndJewHatred, the organizations behind the rally are relatively new, having been established following the October 7, 2023, onslaught and ensuing surge in anti-Jewish sentiment in the US. The rally marks an early foray into organized protests for the newer groups.
“Join us to rally and let NYT know they must stop the anti-Zionist libels! Enough is enough!” the organizers said.
The protest comes after anti-Zionist activists marched through a Jewish area of Brooklyn on Monday and scuffled with residents as a local Young Israel synagogue hosted an event by a real estate group that advertises listings in West Bank settlements.
Several anti-Zionist protesters at the Monday night rally accused Jewish counter-demonstrators and neighborhood residents of “raping people with dogs,” citing The Times report.
