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A civil war has erupted inside the New York Times over Nicholas Kristof’sexplosive column alleging widespread sexual abuseof Palestinians by Israeli prison guards.
Staffers at the newspaper are questioning whethersome of the most incendiary claims, including an allegation that Israel trains dogs to rape Palestinian detainees, would have ever cleared the paper’s newsroom standards, according to Puck News.
The internal backlash has grown so intense that one Times journalist vented to Puck: “I am sick of being embarrassed by the Opinion section.”
The controversy centers on Kristof’s May 11 opinion essay,“The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians,”which included graphic allegations from Palestinian detainees who claimed they were sexually assaulted, raped with objects andabused by Israeli prison guards, interrogators and settlers.
The column immediately ignited outrage from pro-Israel critics, sparked denunciations from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and triggeredthreats of a libel suit against the Times.
The Times pushed back forcefully against Netanyahu’s threat to sue the paper, with spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha saying the proposed libel action was “part of a well-worn political playbook that aims to undermine independent reporting and stifle journalism that does not fit a specific narrative.”
She added that “any such legal claim would be without merit.”
While Times leadership has publicly defended Kristof’s reporting as “rigorously and meticulously fact-checked,” Puck reported that many newsroom journalists remain privately “suspicious” of the sourcing behind some of the column’s most graphic allegations.
Kristof’s piece from last week included graphic firsthand accounts from Palestinians who claimed they were raped with batons and other objects, stripped naked, beaten, threatened with rape and sexually humiliated while in Israeli detention facilities.
Source: Drudge Report
