The Times received many responses to Nicholas Kristof’s column detailing sexual assaults against Palestinians by Israelis. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accused The Times of spreading a “blood libel.” Some readers said Mr. Kristof peddled propaganda for Hamas. Some canceled their subscriptions. A number of other readers, including some who said they’re Jewish, wrote that they were grateful the column had run.
In what follows, Mr. Kristof and Kathleen Kingsbury, the head of Times Opinion, respond to some of the most common and pressing questions.
Many readers asked: Given the volume of the critical response, do you stand by this column?
Kathleen Kingsbury: Yes. Nick built upon a growing body of evidence regarding the mistreatment of detainees in Israel. Numerous human rights organizations and reputable news outlets — including prominent Israeli media — have documented abuse by Israeli security forces and settlers. Previous accounts include reports of sexual violence and physical degradation.
Before publication, Nick’s reporting underwent a rigorous vetting process by Opinion’s fact-checking department to ensure that every testimony and anecdote he personally reported was supported by independent sources, as is the case with all sensitive pieces. The Times’s standards and legal teams also reviewed the column and offered feedback. After publication, we reviewed the factual challenges that readers and others raised, as is standard practice with any published piece. Editors found no errors.
The Times’s news staff in the Middle East played no role in Nick’s column. The newsroom has previously covered sexual violence against Palestinians, including those from the West Bank and Gaza, independently of Nick’s work. The newsroom has also written repeatedly about sexual attacks by Palestinians, most recently in an article last week about an Israeli report on those abuses.
Critics who focus on the backgrounds of specific sources often overlook the overwhelming volume and consistency of such accounts. Nick’s column, ultimately, was a call to action, urging those in power to condemn sexual violence in all its forms.
Nicholas Kristof: I traveled to the West Bank and interviewed 14 survivors of rape or other sexual assaults. I cited three surveys that illuminated the scale of this violence, backed by the work of nine organizations and two Israeli lawyers who have worked on these topics. Israel’s Ministry of National Security declined to comment; Israel’s Prison Service did respond with a general denial that was included in the column, but it did not answer specific questions.
In the case of each person I quoted, I also talked either to a witness to the abuse; to a family member, lawyer or social worker the person had confided in; or I backed up the individual’s story with public comments the person made previously. The allegations lined up with outside reporting, surveys, the documentation of human rights groups and, in one case, testimony given to the United Nations.
I found the 14 men and women in this column the same way I have found sources in every conflict zone where I have worked for the past three decades — by asking around. I talked to lawyers, to aid workers, to fellow journalists, to ordinary Palestinians. Nobody sought me out.
I was clear about what I knew and didn’t know, and said so in the column. The fourth paragraph begins, “There is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes.” I later wrote, “It’s impossible to know how common sexual assaults against Palestinians are.”
Why did Mr. Kristof’s article run in the Opinion section and not as part of The Times’s news department? Do the two divisions have different standards?
Kingsbury: Nick is a Times Opinion columnist, with decades of experience reporting on sexual abuse in conflict zones, and his columns run in the Opinion section. Many Opinion columns, editorials, shows and guest essays include reporting to support an argument, such as on-the-ground interviews in the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan, India and China. All published Opinion pieces must meet high standards for accuracy and fairness. Nick’s column met those standards.
The distinction between Times newsroom articles and Opinion pieces is not a distinction of reporting or rigor. It is a distinction of form and purpose. An Opinion column offers a proposition that the writer is asking readers to consider. Newsroom articles and investigations, by contrast, unearth and confirm newsworthy facts and information to share with readers, not to make an argument.
How can you trust the sources? Don’t they have axes to grind and a bias against Israel?
Kingsbury: To report on sexual violence in detention is, by its nature, to report on people who are detainees or prisoners. The Times doesn’t rule out interviewing people or considering them credible because they were in prison or detained.
Times Opinion also doesn’t deem a person’s account of sexual violence to be credible or not based on his or her social media history. We assess credibility based on corroboration and other evidence as well as fact-checking and, often, more reporting.
Kristof: Two sources, Issa Amro and Sami al-Sai, have come under particular scrutiny. Opinion’s fact-checkers reviewed the prior accounts of both men. Both provided additional details over time about their assaults. Opinion editors corroborated their experiences with other sources before determining their accounts to be credible.
It is true that rapes are difficult to document, and they are often contested. And yes, people sometimes lie about being raped. What I’ve seen is that societies are typically too slow to believe accusers, not too quick. Almost everywhere, rape is underreported because of the shame that often goes with it. It takes courage to sit down with a reporter and acknowledge being sexually assaulted.
It serves no one to automatically discount people’s accounts because of their identity or beliefs. I don’t want a hierarchy in which some victims are believed and others are doubted because their accounts don’t fit with what we want to believe about the accused.
I’m always alert to the risk of being used by people with political agendas. In this case, those who spoke had much to lose.
Euro-Med, an advocacy group, is quoted a number of times in the piece. Isn’t it significantly biased against Israel?
Kristof: Euro-Med is led by a chairman whose statements in support of the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 can’t be taken lightly, and I take the anger over the group’s inclusion in my column seriously. At the same time, citing a source does not constitute an endorsement of its leadership’s political views or social media activity. In addition, the specific information I cited from Euro-Med was not used in isolation. I cited nine organizations, including the United Nations, an Israeli nonprofit called B’Tselem and others, which documented similar abuse. Euro-Med was not involved in helping me find the victims whose accounts I detailed.
Readers have said the allegations involving dogs abusing detainees is not only impossible but also a “blood libel” against Israel and its citizens.
Kristof: This passage provoked the most disgust and disbelief. A Palestinian journalist detained in 2024 told me he was held down, stripped, blindfolded and handcuffed while a dog was brought in and, with encouragement from a handler, mounted and penetrated him. Before he spoke to me, he confided his account to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, an Israeli human rights organization.
I thought carefully about whether to include this. In the end I did because he had told his account previously and because what he described has happened before. Other Palestinian prisoners and human rights monitors have cited reports of dogs sexually assaulting prisoners. The Pinochet regime in Chile used a dog to rape political prisoners. Peer-reviewed medical literature documents rectal injuries caused by canine penetration.
Why did Mr. Kristof mention rape allegations against Hamas from Oct. 7, 2023, when there is no solid proof of them?
Kingsbury: We firmly disagree with the assertion that there is no solid proof of sexual violence stemming from the Oct. 7 attacks. The Times newsroom, along with numerous independent human rights organizations and other news outlets, has documented the brutal sexual assaults committed by Hamas-led militants. Times reporting on this is grounded in verified testimonies and comprehensive, on-the-ground investigations.
Readers suggested Times Opinion ran this report to draw attention away from a separate investigation by an Israeli civil organization documenting sexual assault committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and after. The Israeli government said The Times rejected an offer to review the report’s findings.
Kristof: The commission’s work had no bearing on the timing for my column, which had been undergoing fact-checking and editing for weeks. Otherwise, I’d refer you to the recent statement of Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for The New York Times: “The Times never passed on the Civil Commission report and wasn’t told about its completion or the timing of its release. Once the report was made public, we covered its findings.”
Doesn’t your reporting worsen the problem of antisemitism?
Kristof: This is a fair question, for antisemitism is a growing problem. I have wrestled with versions of this question my whole career. When journalists covered the Hamas terror attack of Oct. 7, 2023, we were aware that vivid coverage of Hamas atrocities risked aggravating Islamophobia. A week after the attack, a man in Chicago stabbed a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy to death, reportedly shouting that Muslims “must die.” The solution was not to soft-pedal coverage of Hamas. When I covered the Darfur genocide — committed by Arabs against several African ethnic groups — I knew my coverage might aggravate bigotry against Arabs.
The solution is not to look away. When you have interviewed rape survivors and seen their trauma and their courage in speaking up, you want to blow the whistle, whether in Sudan or the West Bank.
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