Netanyahu Threatens Libel Suit Against New York Times Over Sexual Abuse Claims

The New York Times dismissed a libel action threatened by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over an article alleging sexual assaults against Palestinian detainees by Israeli security services as without merit.

Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar issued a statement Thursday ordering the initiation of a defamation lawsuit. Their statement accused the Times of one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press.

The dispute followed the paper's publication Monday of a 3,700-word opinion column by Nicholas Kristof headlined The Silence that Meets the Rape of Palestinians. Kristof wrote that there is no evidence Israeli leaders order rapes but that in recent years they have built a security apparatus where sexual violence has become, as a United Nations report put it last year, one of Israel's standard operating procedures and a major element in the ill treatment of Palestinians.

Kristof based his reporting on conversations with 14 men and women who said they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces. The piece included first-person descriptions by alleged victims of sexual abuse, including rape and assault with objects. It also featured a claim by an unnamed Gaza journalist that he was raped by a dog on the command of the dog's handler.

In response, the Times said Netanyahu has threatened to file a libel lawsuit regarding Kristof's deeply reported opinion column on sexual abuse by Israel's prison guards, soldiers, settlers and interrogators. This threat, similar to one made last year, is part of a well-worn political playbook that aims to undermine independent reporting and stifle journalism that does not fit a specific narrative, the paper said. Any such legal claim would be without merit.

Israel's ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, posted a video statement saying the only clear crime on display here is the violation of journalistic standards by Mr Kristof and his paper.

Scores of Jewish protesters demonstrated outside the Times office in Manhattan on Thursday, calling for Kristof to be fired.

Extensive reports in recent years, including by Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, have compiled evidence of sexual violence used against Palestinian detainees. Last year, two Palestinian men separately told the BBC they were sexually abused while in detention. One said a dog was used to sexually humiliate him.

The Israeli Prison Service said at the time, in relation to one of the men, that it was not aware of the claims described and that it operates in full accordance with the law. It did not comment on the second man's claims.

Also last year, five soldiers were charged with assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza at Sde Teiman military prison, including one accused of stabbing the detainee's buttock with a sharp object. The case polarized opinion in Israel, with right-wing supporters accusing the left-wing of using the incident to smear the security forces.

CCTV video of the incident later leaked by then-Israeli Military Advocate General Maj Gen Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, leading to her resignation and arrest.

Lawyers in Israel specializing in defamation told the BBC that while there were ways the state could bring the case to court there, it would be challenging. In the State of Israel, filing a civil claim in this context has a low likelihood of success, given that the Defamation Law prevents the bringing of a civil action by a collective, and the legal system does not encourage defamation suits by governmental bodies as a matter of public policy, due to considerations of protection for freedom of speech, said Liat Bergman Ravid.

It is not clear how, or if, such a claim by the Israeli state against the US newspaper could be pursued.