Good.
(I originally published this post without a graphic, waiting for the memes to come out. I decided on the one above…)
Israeli officials not only released a bombshell report this week extensively documenting Hamas violence on and after the October 7 terrorist ambush, but they are also suing The New York Times for libel as a response to its publishing Nick Kristof’s outrageous claim that Israel was torturing Palestinian prisoners by, among other methods, having them sexually assaulted by trained dogs. The Times also released the libelous accusation on the day before a new, thoroughly sourced report on Hamas violence, “Silenced No More,” was scheduled for release. The Times, almost alone among news outlets, refused to publish that because it reflected poorly on Hamas. It preferred to assert that Jews are training Lassie and Rin Tin Tin to get off on anal rape.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry announced May 14, “Following the publication by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times of one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press, which also received the backing of the newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar have instructed the initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.”
The news media has been abusing its privilege under New York Times v. Sullivan with increasing boldness in recent years, and many have suggested (including me) that the standards for punishable slander and libel need to be re-thought in light of a profession no longer committed to honesty and independent public service. To be fair, it is jolly decent of the Times to eliminate any question that the paper is nothing less than a Democratic talking point propaganda organ. Democrats hate Israel and Jews now, or perhaps you haven’t noticed. The Times has, as I wrote here (#6), even doubled-down on Kristof’s evidence-free claims.
As CNN token conservative Scott Jennings wrote on “X”: “Dying on dog rape hill. What a choice.”
Ethics Alarms 
I certainly hope that the lawsuit Israel is filing against the NYT will bring a great deal more light to the situation, one way or another. And frankly, I would prefer not to have to delve into the sordid details, but there are a couple of points that are maybe worth mulling over.
On the one side, we Kristof who has been embarrassed in the past by reporting on a supposed former-prostitute who was allegedly helping other women escape prostitution. It turns out this woman fabricated her entire story for years. I would have thought reporting on what turned out to be complete fiction for a long time would be career-ending, but apparently not.
Furthermore, Israel has been accused of making use of animals for all kinds of things, from sneaky to wicked, and those accusations have been found to be baseless. Having that background puts in a “Boy Who Cried Wolf” situation. Our automatic reflex is to disbelieve the story because we’ve seen too many other stories prove false. To top that off, apparently the claims made by alleged victims who have not hidden their identity have evolved over time, growing more sensational with each venue they’ve been reported in. This is
On the other side, just because the accusations seem incredible does not mean they did not happen. One line of reasoning is that some people do engage in bestiality with dogs. Kristof, in his own defense, points out the existence of people who are admitted to the ER with rectal tears from such activity. Is it too much of a stretch to claim that if someone could train his dog to be the active partner in willing bestiality, then a dog could be trained to engage in such activity with any bared backside?
There is a further thought that could make Kristof’s reporting slightly more credible, in that Muslim view dogs as unclean. Being forced to endure even friendly dog engaged in overly-affectionate advances could be a humiliation tactic, and it doesn’t have to be actual sexual conduct on the dog’s part. And we do have cases in the past where people have taken humiliation tactics against Muslim prisoners.
With any of these stories, while they are sensational and controversial, it always seems that given enough time, truth will out. I’m not qualified to do any of the deep digging needed to help reveal the truth of the story, so the best I can do is wait and see how events turn out. I suppose what I fear is that the lawsuit reveals that essentially nothing of the sort that Kristof reported actually happened, but the suit itself fizzles because something like lack of demonstrable malice or some such. The dismissal of the case on such grounds would be taken as proof that the dog-rape did happen, even if the documented evidence showed otherwise.
On malice, I think this is malice per se. If you make such an inflammatory claim without evidence, you can’t claim, “Don’t take it personally.” Libel and slander mean making accusations as fact that can’t be verified as fact.
“Is it too much of a stretch to claim that if someone could train his dog to be the active partner in willing bestiality, then a dog could be trained to engage in such activity with any bared backside?”
Yes.
It strains credulity to claim that there isn’t at least one whistleblower. There is a very strong sense of anger towards those behind the events of Oct 7, but it is hard to think that they can have 100% all in on this. Conspiracies are hard to keep together. The lack of any evidence should lead to deep skepticism. A lack of evidence but still running with the story reeks of bias.
Discovery during this lawsuit will be fun. In many of these cases, the new agencies fold and settle when it reaches the discovery phase. All of the gems floating around inside the NYT will no doubt be damming to the NYT, so it will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
You would think as long as I’ve followed this blog, I’d understand the definitions of libel, slander, etc much better.
So, not being a lawyer myself, I don’t know the difficulties of proving libel in court. I’m seeing from a quick Google search that in order to prove libel, the printed statement has to be false, the publisher has to know or should have known by some measure of due diligence that the statement was false, the statement has to be publicly disseminated (no question there), and the statement has to cause reputational harm (also no question there).
So, it seems Israel has the task of showing that the dog-rape never occurred. A quick win would be if it were truly impossible to train dogs to rape prisoners. (That’s why I bothered with the speculation above, as distasteful as that task was.) Then not only is the accusation proved false, but Kristof should have known it was false. However, given that victim testimony (however unreliable) exists, at that some people do engage in bestiality, I don’t think it would be a simple matter to show the dog-rape was impossible.
So, what does the mean for Israel’s case? Is it sufficient to show that the victim claims are not credible? I could imagine that even were Israel to show that none of accusations were credible, all that would prove is that the dog-rape didn’t happen to those particular individuals. I assume that alone would not be sufficient to show that Kristof did not perform due diligence. In the absence of finding an e-mail where Kristof confesses everything, what is the bar Kristof had to have met to show due diligence? I have to admit I fear the bar is high to show negligence, but I don’t have much knowledge on how high a bar it is.
Slander’s spoken, libel’s written (the idea was that a written-down lie was worse than a spoken lie because the written word lingers and can continue to harm the lied-about person).
Now that we live in an era when everything we say can be recorded on video and blasted on the internet for all time, the distinction no longer makes sense.
I am trying wrap my mind around defaming an entire country. I get “actual malice” and pubic persona issues. But, defaming a country? Can that be done?
jvb
Good question. It can be done, of course, the question is whether there is a legal remedy. All Israel might be seeking is official proof that the Times had no real evidence of its assertion.
If I was a reporter, there is no way I would write a story on something like this unless I had near absolute proof. I probably wouldn’t even do it unless I had someone within the Israeli military who knew about it to corroborate it. I couldn’t rely on terrorist propaganda for my reporting.
The Times is continuing to disgrace itself.
“If I was a reporter, there is no way I would write a story on something like this unless I had near absolute proof.”
If your Mother says she loves you, check it out….
PWS
I am not a lawyer, and I do not know if libel against a country is a legal thing, that could overturn the New York Times v. Sullivan protections of the NYT and Kristof.
Ethically I think it is as much a thing as slandering a people. The Jews have been the target of blood libels such as in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which bolstered antisemitism in thought and act. In Nazi Germany they showed propaganda movies like “The Eternal Jew” and “Jud Süß”. We all know how that ended.
I do not think that Kristof deserves the benefit of Hanlon’s razor, as I think the article was written out of malice. The timing to make the dog rape allegations coincide with the publication of the report on the atrocities committed by Hamas at October 7th, 2023 including all the rape, forced incest and mutilation is deliberate in order to take that report out of the news cycle; we cannot have Jewish victims, only Palestinian victims.