Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar instructed on Thursday to file a lawsuit against the American newspaper The New York Times over the publication of an allegedly false opinion piece claiming that Gazan terrorists imprisoned in Israel were subjected to “sexual abuse” after being detained during the war, particularly following the October 7 massacre.
“In light of Nicholas Kristof’s publication in the New York Times of one of the most horrifying and distorted lies ever against the State of Israel in modern journalism, which was also backed by the newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar have ordered the initiation of a libel lawsuit against the New York Times,” the State of Israel said.
The lawsuit, as mentioned, revolves around a column by American commentator Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times that was published about three days ago. The central claim in the false column is the “existence of sexual violence” against terrorists imprisoned in Israel.
Although Christoph emphasized in his article that “there is no evidence that Israeli leaders ordered acts of rape,” it seems that he nevertheless found it appropriate to de facto accuse Israel of crimes, when, in his words, “in recent years, a security system has been built in Israel in which sexual violence has become standard operating procedures and a central component in the abuse of ‘Palestinians’.”
Ostensibly, he relied on the testimonies of 14 terrorists who claimed to have experienced sexual assaults by prison guards, soldiers, and interrogators, as well as on reports from various international organizations. Among the lies published in the article: shocking descriptions of gang rape, as well as a claim that Israel trained dogs “to rape ‘Palestinians’,” including a description of a case in which this actually happened.