I cannot believe we have to do this. The New York Times, the paper of record, just published an op-ed accusing the State of Israel of systematic sexual violence against Palestinian detainees, including the claim that Israel is training dogs to rape prisoners. One of their sources is a man who left his job after multiple people, including minors, accused him of sending them threatening and sexual messages. The other is Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a group whose chairman was sanctioned by Israel as a Hamas operative and who publicly called the testimonies of Israeli women raped on October 7th “fabricated lies.” The Times is using the words of a man credibly accused of sexually harassing children, and an organization led by a man who denies the rape of Jewish women, to build a case that Israelis are sexual predators. This is the most serious accusation you can level at a country. It demands the most serious sourcing. The Times decided the opinion section was good enough. It is not good enough. And spare me the crocodile tears. The same people who spent two years calling the rape victims of October 7th liars, who told us “believe women” had an asterisk when the women were Jewish, are about to share this op-ed with tears in their eyes. They never cared about sexual violence. They cared about who they could pin it on. I do not want to spend my day writing about this. But when the largest newspaper in the world launders this against my people, silence is complicity. @nytimes owes our community, and its readers, an apology.
