A civil war has erupted inside the New York Times over Nicholas Kristof’s explosive column alleging widespread sexual abuse of Palestinians by Israeli prison guards.
Staffers at the newspaper are questioning whether some 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 and abused 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 triggered threats of a libel suit against the Times.
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.
The Post has sought comment from the Times.
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.
One Palestinian journalist alleged guards tried to force a rubber baton into his rectum before using a carrot instead, while another detainee claimed he was assaulted multiple times with a metal baton after attempting to file a complaint.
Kristof also cited allegations that guards beat detainees’ genitals, threatened prisoners’ family members with rape and used dogs in acts of sexual abuse against prisoners.
The column included testimony from a Gaza journalist who claimed a dog was encouraged by guards to sexually assault him while prison staff laughed and photographed the incident.
Israeli officials flatly denied the allegations.
The Israeli prison service told the Times it “categorically rejects the allegations” of sexual abuse, while Netanyahu denounced accusations of sexual violence against Israel as “baseless.”
