A new Civil Commission on the October 7 Crimes Against Women and Children report, released Tuesday [The organization is Israeli, but some of the “principal contributors” were not], includes a 298-page pdf called “Silenced no more: the untold atrocities of October 7 and against hostages in captivity.” It includes description after description of horrific sexual violence enacted against the attendees at the Nova Festival, as well as on Israelis living near the border, and is hard to read. (You can see the Daily Mail summary here). The Civil Commission is an independent Israeli investigative body, and investigated reports of assaults over a period two years
Nearly simultaneously with the report’s release—some say this is no coincidence—Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed for the NYT called “The silence that meets the rape of Palestinians“, with the subtitle, “Male and female Palestinians describe brutal sexual abuse at the hands of Israel’s prison guards, soldiers, settlers and interrogators”. (His article is archived here.) It is very long (it took up eight pages of 10-point type in Word when I printed it out) but is filed under “op-ed” rather than “news” or “news analysis”, though it is more a news piece than anything else. Kristof very briefly mentions his own views, but if his data were sound, I think the Times should have run some of his allegations as a separate news piece, for those allegations are startling.
But that’s no reason to dismiss Kristof’s claims. The sources need to be checked and verified, and any allegations that turn out to be true should be punished by Israel, as they have been before. (Of course Hamas doesn’t punish sexual brutality against Israelis, but in fact encourages it.)
Kristof says that Israel has been guilty of systematic sexual abuse against Palestinian men, women, and children, abuse that was known to but ignored by both Israeli and American officials. He also mentions a Euro-Med report on the same subject, which is linked in the comments below.
The question, then, is are Kristof’s allegations true? The Israelis at least had and photographed the bodies of victims for corroboration, but Kristof bases his evidence on hearsay, and he sought out the victims by asking around (something he later ignores when drawing conclusions). And there is no shortage of criticisms of his report, which I’ll link to below; many question the accuracy of the sources and/or accuse Kristof of being credulous. But first, read Kristof’s allegations. A summary:
. . . . in wrenching interviews, Palestinians have recounted to me a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children — by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards.
There is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes. But 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.” A report out last month, from the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based advocacy group often critical of Israel, concludes that Israel employs “systematic sexual violence” that is “widely practiced as part of an organized state policy.”
. . . It’s impossible to know how common sexual assaults against Palestinians are. My reporting for this article is based on conversations with 14 men and women who said they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces. I also spoke to family members, investigators, officials and others.
. In many cases it was possible to corroborate the victims’ stories in part by talking to witnesses or, more commonly, to those whom the victims had confided in, such as family members, lawyers and social workers; in other cases it was not possible, perhaps because shame left people reluctant to acknowledge abuse even to loved ones.
Some examples of abuse (Kristof himself found 14). :
The Palestinians I interviewed recounted various kinds of abuse beyond rape. Many reported that they often had their genitals yanked or were beaten on the testicles. Hand-held metal detectors were used to probe between men’s naked legs and then smashed into their private parts; some men had to have their testicles amputated by doctors after beatings, according to the Euro-Med monitor.
One reason these abuses don’t receive more attention is threats by Israeli authorities, who periodically warn prisoners on release to keep quiet, according to Palestinians who have been freed. Another reason, Palestinian survivors told me, is that Arab society discourages discussing the topic for fear of hurting the morale of prisoners’ families and undermining the Palestinian narrative of defiant and heroic detainees.
. . . Most of the rape and other sexual violence has been directed at men, if only because Palestinian prisoners are more than 90 percent male. But I spoke to one Palestinian woman who was arrested at the age of 23 after the Hamas attack in October 2023. She said that the soldiers who arrested her threatened to rape her, her mother and her young niece. Her prison ordeal began with a strip-search conducted by female guards, “but then a male soldier came in, when I was completely naked,” she added.
For the next few days, she said, she was repeatedly stripped naked, beaten and searched by teams of male and female guards alike. The pattern was always the same: Several guards, men and women together, would come to her cell, forcibly strip her naked, handcuff her hands behind her back and bend her forward at the waist, sometimes forcing her head into the toilet. In this position, she would be beaten and groped all over, she said.
. . . “Israeli forces systematically employ rape and sexual torture to humiliate Palestinian female detainees,” the Euro-Med report said. It cited a 42-year-old woman who said she had been shackled naked to a metal table as Israeli soldiers forcibly had sex with her over two days while other soldiers filmed the attacks. Afterward, she said, she was shown photos of her being raped and told they would be published if she did not cooperate with Israeli intelligence.
If those photos still exist, they can be used as evidence.Some of the most shocking claims involve dog rape:
. . . .Some of the worst sexual abuse appears to have been directed at prisoners from Gaza. A Gaza journalist shared with me his account of the abuse he suffered after he was detained in 2024.
“No one escaped sexual assaults,” he said. “Not all were raped, I would say, but everyone went through humiliating, filthy sexual assaults.” On one occasion, he said, the guards zip-tied his testicles and penis for hours while beating his genitals. For days afterward, he said, he urinated blood.
On one occasion, he said, he was held down, stripped naked, and as he was blindfolded and handcuffed, a dog was summoned. With encouragement from a handler in Hebrew, he said, the dog mounted him.
Other Palestinian prisoners and human rights monitors have also cited reports of police dogs being coached to rape prisoners. The journalist said that when he was released, an Israeli official warned him: “If you want to stay alive when you return, do not speak to the media.”
And according to Kristof, Palestinian children were not spared, either:
Multiple accounts indicate that sexual violence has been directed even at Palestinian children, who are typically imprisoned for throwing stones. I located and interviewed three boys who had been detained, and all described being sexually abused.
One, a shy boy in a Hilfiger shirt who was 15 years old at the time of his arrest, declined to say whether he had also witnessed actual rapes. But he said threats were routine: “They’d say, ‘Do this or we’ll put this stick up your butt.’”
There are claims that the sexual violence was systematic:
“Rampant sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners is a thing; it’s been normalized,” said Sari Bashi, an Israeli American human rights lawyer who is the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. “I don’t see evidence that it has been ordered. But there’s persistent evidence that the authorities know it’s happening and are not stopping it.”
Another Israeli lawyer, Ben Marmarelli, told me that based on the experiences of the Palestinian detainees he has represented, rape of Palestinian prisoners with objects “is going on across the board.”
Why Kristof finds the allegations credible:
Some may wonder whether Palestinians fabricated accusations of sexual assaults to defame Israel. To me that seems far-fetched, because none of those I interviewed sought me out or knew who else I was speaking to, and they were reluctant to speak. Yet there is some evidence that Israel’s sexual abuse has become so frequent that norms are changing and Palestinian victims are becoming a bit more willing to speak out.
Note, though, that he said earlier, “I found these victims by asking around among lawyers, human rights groups, aid workers and ordinary Palestinians themselves.” Thus they didn’t really seek him out to tell their stories, but were volunteered by organizations or individuals who knew of allegations. These claims can’t both be true.
Sexual violence is especially horrible as humans, especially women, have evolved to choose with whom they mate, and forcible rape is a form of not only traumatizing physical violence, but also an odious abrogation of mate choice. And of course for men, who are embarrassed to admit they were sodomized, it can be equally humiliating. The abrogation of choice in this manner is to me one way of understanding why sexual violence is considered more horrific than other types of physical violence.
At the end, Kristof gives his take, but it’s short compared to his recounting of the incidents:
Hamas has indeed brutally violated human rights. Israeli officials should look to their own violations as well — in particular at what a 49-page United Nations report last year called Israel’s “systematically” subjecting Palestinians to “sexualized torture” committed with at least “an implicit encouragement by the top civilian and military leadership.”
Think of it this way: The horrific abuse inflicted on Israeli women on Oct. 7 now happens to Palestinians day after day. It persists because of silence, indifference and the failure of American and Israeli officials alike to answer Netanyahu’s query: Where the hell are you?
Although I’ve been generally sympathetic to Israel (as opposed to Hamas), I can’t simply dismiss Kristof’s report as made up. Any Israeli committing sexual violence on others needs to be punished to the full extent of the law. I expect Israel will investigate Kristof’s claims, though that will be hard as many sources are anonymous or unwilling to go public.
In contrast, other news venues have sharply criticized Kristof’s report: Here are some links, though I can’t quote from all the articles:
The Israeli government responds in theTimes of Israel c
The Hollywood Reporter (by Hen Mazzig)
And
I’ll quote two: Eli Lake in the Free Press and the National Review article. First, though, a tweet sent me by Maarten Boudry.
To address the stories from Chile and maybe others about “dog rape:” the “Gaza journalist” cited and trusted by Kristof made a highly specific claim of mounting and anal penetration only by verbal command. That has never been before documented. (Crazy that I have to write this). pic.twitter.com/mkEppIY0sh
— Aizenberg (@Aizenberg55) May 13, 2026
If rape by trained dogs isn’t credible, what does that say about Kristof’s other claims? Did he not investigate the biology of his dog-rapist claims? There’s more below in Eli Lake’s piece:
And now quotes from Lake’s Free Press piece:
But Kristof engineered his piece to lend the scandalous claims more credibility than they deserve. He purported to have shared the abuse allegations with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and sought his reaction. “Do I believe it happens? Definitely,” Kristof recorded Olmert as saying. “There are war crimes committed every day in the territories.”
Yet Olmert later said that Kristof misrepresented their conversation. In a statement sent to The New York Times and obtained by The Free Press, Olmert said: “Mr. Kristof’s article includes claims of extraordinary gravity: that Israeli authorities have directed the rape of children, that dogs have been used as instruments of sexual assault, that systematic sexual torture is state policy. I did not validate these claims. I have no knowledge supporting these claims as I said to Mr. Kristof. Therefore, the positioning of my quote after pages of such allegations misrepresents my views.”
The story of trained rape dogs does not hold up. Let’s start with what is known about the biology of male dogs. Their penises are small and thin. They become erect only when they smell the pheromones of a female dog in heat. Brandon McMillan, the three-time Emmy-winning host of CBS’s Lucky Dog, who has spent 25 years training animals, told me he had never heard of a dog who was trained to rape a human being and doubted this was possible.
“When a female is in heat, the pheromones released carry it to the male canine,” McMillan said. “That’s how they reproduce and the miracle happens. I don’t see how you would train a dog to do that. The dog has to get turned on, for lack of a better word.”
Kristof claimed on X on Tuesday that “at least three different medical journal articles discuss rectal injuries in humans from anal penetration by dogs.” He did not provide links to those studies. There is one historical claim of a dog trained to rape prisoners. A German shepherd named Volodia was allegedly trained to rape female prisoners during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile at the Venda Sexy torture facility. This was reported by a Chilean truth-and-reconciliation commission based on the testimony of victims. These reports, however, do not account for how Volodia became erect in the absence of female dogs in heat.
Lake alleges that some of Kristof’s sources are connected to Hamas, but he does mention the credible story I mentioned above about the sexual abuse of a Palestinian prisoner. Unfortunately, the victim returned to Gaza and the IDF dropped the charges.
More:
Another problem with the report is that Kristof cites the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which amplified the dog rape claims in April. The Switzerland-based organization purports to be a neutral human rights group, but it has a history of spreading libel against Israel, such as a November 2023 report that raised “concerns” that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was harvesting the organs of Palestinian corpses.
In 2013, Israel designated Euro-Med’s founder and current chairman Ramy Abdu as a Hamas operative in Europe. On the day after the October 7 massacre, Abdu posted on X: “In this battle, Palestine offered the elite of its youth and men on the path of freedom and dignity. Succeeding generations will remember you, and history will immortalize you as knightly heroes who forged for us a pure glory untainted by the mud. Preserve their names well, and teach the tales of their immortal valor to your children and grandchildren.”
. . .Was Kristof’s “journalist source” an example of a militant using a press affiliation as cover to advance his side in an information war?
To be sure, Kristof does include interviews with named victims who claim to have experienced sexual torture, which has been documented in Israel and many prisons throughout the world. Israel was rocked last year by the scandal of an alleged sexual torture at a detention facility known as Sde Teiman. Grainy and inconclusive video emerged in 2024 that appeared to show guards abusing a Palestinian prisoner.
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told me that he thinks the allegations that guards sexually abused a prisoner at Sde Teiman were credible. The problem, according to Conricus, is that the victim and witness to this abuse was allowed to return to Gaza, after which the IDF dropped the charges against the guards.
. . .“This is a story about how Israel was institutionally overwhelmed by events after October 7,” Conricus said. “So many terrorists infiltrated Israel on that day, there were too many to process, and reservists without the right training were called up to be prison guards.”
Conricus, however, said there was no evidence that sexual abuse was a systemic practice in Israeli jails as Euro-Med and Kristof claim. “There is no comparison to be made between terrorists who invaded a country, who raped, killed, and mutilated people, and the heavy-handed treatment by some Israeli guards against Palestinian terrorists who have been caught,” he said.
That is a vital distinction. Israel faces an enemy that filmed its atrocities on October 7 and celebrated the barbarism as an act of resistance. Now that same enemy is trying to persuade the world that Israel is no different than Hamas. Woe to any journalist credulous enough to believe them.
Finally, from the National Review‘s article by Brittany Bernstein: “Kristof’s extraordinary claims about Israeli rape require extraordinary evidence. The Times doesn’t have it.”
But media watchdogs have now raised questions about the integrity of the sourcing in the reported opinion column, which relies predominantly on claims from the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor and several individuals with checkered backgrounds.
.. . . Euro-Med’s bias is obvious — it has “documented links to Hamas and a long record of extreme, unverified accusations against Israel,” according to HonestReporting, a pro-Israel media watchdog.
. . .Those unfounded accusations include that Israel was stealing organs from the bodies of dead Palestinians, that Israeli soldiers were executing patients in cold blood at al-Shifa Hospital, and, perhaps most notably, that Israeli forces have trained dogs to rape prisoners.
While Euro-Med first published the claim about dogs in 2024, the group issued a new report last month containing new detainee testimony making the same allegation, through the same unverified methodology, as Eli Kowaz writes in his own criticism of the Kristof piece.
And canine behavior expert Michael S. Gould tells National Review that the suggestion that dogs could be trained to rape prisoners is “absurd.”
“I’ve trained dogs to do a lot of things in my life. But no, that’s absurd,” said Gould, who began working with dogs in 1982 as one of the first members of the New York City Police Department’s Canine Unit and later went on to become a canine forensics expert and consultant. “It’s absurd for many reasons: the sexual instincts of dogs, their anatomy, the actual physical concept of it.”
. . .Kristof, in his piece, further writes that, “Palestinians have recounted to me a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children — by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards.”
But questions remain about the stories told by the few named sources in Kristof’s article.
Sami al-Sai, whom Kristof describes as a “freelance journalist,” says he was arrested because Israeli authorities hoped to pressure him into becoming an informant. “Because he prided himself on his journalistic professionalism, he said, he refused” to become an informant, Kristof reports.
However, al-Sai had previously been jailed in 2016 for incitement, the same charge he faced under his 2024 arrest. The charge is a criminal offense related to the publishing of material intended to encourage, support, or provoke violence or terrorism.
And al-Sai’s social media offers blatant evidence of his celebration of terrorism [Examples are given.]
. . .Kristof says it was another source, Issa Amro, who first sparked his interest in reporting on alleged sexual assaults against Palestinian prisoners. He says Amro, “a nonviolent activist sometimes called ‘the Palestinian Gandhi,’” told him that he had been sexually assaulted by Israeli soldiers and that he believed this was common but underreported because of shame.
But Amro initially said in February 2024, according to the Washington Post, that he was threatened with sexual assault during a ten-hour detention on October 7, 2023 — not that he was actually assaulted.
However, Kristof’s column describes Amro as a victim of sexual assault.
And the Israeli response (so far) as given in Bernstein’s article:
. . .Israel’s prison service told the Times it “categorically rejects the allegations” of sexual abuse.
And the Israeli Foreign Ministry called Kristof’s column “one of the worst blood libels ever to appear in the modern press.”
“In an unfathomable inversion of reality, and through an endless stream of baseless lies, propagandist Nicholas Kristof turns the victim into the accused,” the statement from the foreign ministry adds.
“Israel – whose citizens were the victims of the most horrific sexual crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, and whose hostages were later subjected to further sexual abuse – is portrayed as the guilty party,” the statement concludes. “This publication is no coincidence. It is part of a false and well-orchestrated anti-Israel campaign aimed at placing Israel on the UN Secretary-General’s blacklist.”
The ministry further accused the Times of purposefully timing the release of Kristof’s column to pull attention away from the findings of Israel’s Civil Commission to investigate Hamas’s systemic violence during, and since, the October 7 attack. The ministry said the commission approached the paper “months ago” about the planned release of the 300-page report, and that the Times “was not interested” in reporting it.
The report was released on Tuesday morning, one day after Kristof’s column was published. It found Hamas militants and their allies raped, assaulted, and sexually tortured their victims during and after the October 7, 2023, terror attack on southern Israel “to maximize pain and suffering.”
I don’t know if the timed publication of Kristof’s “J’accuse” column and the Civil Commission report were coincidental or planned, and I don’t much care. What happened are claims about reality, and should be verified, as far as they can, with evidence. And witnesses should be credible and not have given contradictory statements. These are early days, and no doubt Kristof’s allegations will be investigated. For now, just read the allegations and the responses, and weigh in below if you have any thoughts.
I don’t see how the Jews could have time to train rape dogs when they’re so busy controlling the weather, building space lasers, and engineering viruses to which they alone are immune.
^ First comment….and still the best (at 21 so far.)
Plus all the time it takes to run Hollywood and the news media!
Saw some of this yesterday. Based on Kristof’s misrepresentation of the four journal studies on bestiality, willful or not, I don’t feel it necessary to give any credence to what he says. The idea is preposterous. Kristof is clearly looking for a smear and not overly concerned about the facts.
In the 80’s, some porn sites experimented with dog/woman sex (not rape!). One woman picked for this…’job,’ quickly discovered if she acted like she was really into in, the poor dog was confused and useless. That way her male ’employers’ couldn’t blame her for the dog’s lack of interest. (Now, I’m sure the porn biz could easily do this with ai.)
Isn’t this just another blood libel smear? The perpetrators know it’s wrong, but don’t care; even debunked, it will be repeated ad nauseam by the useful idiots. That’s all they care about, that others, especially overprivileged 19-year olds on campuses like Columbia repeat it (no need to believe it, which no one does).
Below I’ve posted a link to a corrective essay by Maarten Boudry.
Has someone hacked WEIT? I cannot give these Palis even the least bit of possible credibility. They continually reflect all the things they do onto the Jews. Like little children: “you’re x..no, YOU’RE x”. Whether it is accusing Israel of being white colonists usurping indigenous Arab Muslim land or genocide or being an illegitimate state or even firing a rocket into a hospital murdering 500 civilians, and the list goes on…
The Oct 7 report needed deflection, so just as the Pali camps showed up on campuses with their placarded antisemitism within 24 hours of the massacre, so has this “report” shown up in the nyt, earlier purveyor of the intellectually vacuous 1619 project….and the U.S. middle class white guilt will march on…
I’m trying not to rush to judgement. After all, there was once a credible case of sexual abuse of a prisoner, a while back, and we can’t simply say that Kristof is wrong about everything.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Did the dogs have hats saying “This is MAGA country”?
+1 for the Juicy Smoolay reference.
I’ve read the allegations and some of the criticisms. I hope that the Israeli leadership takes the allegations seriously and makes an effort to investigate them. The allegations are explosive. It they lack credibility, a formal investigation can set the record straight. I don’t think that this sort of allegation can be left to journalists, pundits, and influencers to adjudicate.
Here is how the normally soft-spoken Haviv Rettig Gur responded yesterday on his Ask Haviv Anything YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/FNfLVk3Kjvg?si=nbKxLsSgFgSDsISe.
Man, Gur is really worked up! He’s quite eloquent, and says that Kristof is lying, too lazy to check his facts.
Yes. It’s out of character for the seemingly gentle Gur.
I just downloaded the Civil Commission’s 298 page report on sexual violence by Hamas. I have a lot of reading to do. The fact that Kristof’s piece came out just in time to blunt the impact of the Civil Commission’s report—thanks to the click-bait allegation of trained rape dogs—speaks volumes of the New York Times. Imagine using click-bait to attempt to erase the October 7 atrocities. Whatever the veracity of Kristof’s piece, that’s what the Times was attempting to do. Here’s the report: https://www.civilc.org/silenced-no-more.
And before looking at the very graphic report…I have not yet brought myself to the point of looking at it…and may not ever, there is a 36-minute Times of Israel “what matters” video posted yesterday with an interview with a/the lead legal member of the commission on violence to women and children. It is powerful without going into visuals or verbal details of specific incidents…it goes up to that point but stops short thankfully. Url should be
Oh. And Haviv is right on target (thanks for the link, Norman) regarding troop discipline, but also society discipline. As has been pointed out over the past few weeks in these comments, Bibi and BenGvir and friends have ignored bad behaviors of troops, some settlers, and the hilltop youth, along with extremist hasids. Only they can model mensch for the nation and all its layers.
Someone a) very well respeced in his field, b) a non-woke liberal, who c) is well informed has decided to boycott the New York Times over this: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9758
The fact that the NYT management team deliberately mispackaged an improperly-vetted news article as an “Op-Ed” is pretty damning all by itself.
Kristof is an opinion writer, not a news journalist.
He’s rather gullible. He fell for Greg Mortenson’s “Three Cups of Tea” fable (google it along with his name for more details).
The article is factual, not opinion.
Nicholas Kristof makes the same allegations as Francesca Albanese, who was interviewed last week in the left-leaning German newspaper taz. However, neither of them presents any evidence, relying instead solely on hearsay or on conversations and interviews with Palestinians. I would not be at all surprised if Kristof and Albanese had been in contact, which is why their claims sound so similar.
P.S.: The interview in the taz is a prime example of partisan journalism. The reporters suck up to Francesca Albanese and accept all her answers and claims without ever questioning them.
This would not be the first time Nicholas Kristof has spread false stories: Based on my vague memory that years ago Kristof had spread false claims on the topic of sex trafficking, I did this Google search:
This is the first part of the answer I got from Google:
Yes, several of Nicholas Kristof’s highly publicized stories regarding sex trafficking have been challenged or proven false, leading to accusations that he has promoted sensationalized or inaccurate narratives.
Key instances where Kristof’s claims were found to be incorrect or problematic include:
– Fabricated Survivor Story (2009-2014): Kristof famously featured Long Pross, a Cambodian girl he claimed had her eye gouged out and was forced into prostitution. A Newsweek investigation later revealed these claims were fabricated by anti-trafficking activist Somaly Mam, who was accused of manufacturing stories of forced, underage brothel work.
– Fabricated Backpage Story (2012): A video accompanying a Kristof op-ed claimed a 16-year-old was sold on Backpage.com in 2003. The Village Voice pointed out that the website did not exist at that time, making the story impossible.
– Reliance on Unverified Sources: Critics argue that in his efforts to highlight “modern-day slavery,” Kristof often relies on emotional, “victim-scripted” narratives provided by NGOs without rigorous independent verification, according to the Anti-Trafficking Review.
Like Jerry, I don’t doubt that there are individual instances of Palestinian prisoners having been mistreated. But claims of systematic abuse need to backed up with convincing evidence, not just “they/he/she said so”.
And just as a reminder of how unscrupulously the New York Times has reported on the conflict in Gaza before, do this Google search:
A little bit of investigating can start to unravel explosive stories, as you have done. Unfortunately, it’s pretty common these days for such investigations to not keep up with the spread of explosive stories.
“The story of trained rape dogs does not hold up…”
I’m wondering what type of person actually believes that it is plausible that those dastardly Jews are training dogs to rape people. Probably not someone you’d run into at the local MENSA meeting.
This is National Enquirer level journalism.
Is this what the NYT thinks its readers want?
This is on the level of MAD Magazine’s parody of The National Enquirer.
Yup, NYT is the usual gang of idiots…
How low the NYT can go? Apparently, there is no bottom. Rapist dogs!
Now they’re on about Jewish rape dogs? What’s next?
Jerry, I admire your charity and evenhandedness. You’re of course right that such allegations — even if made, as the Times used to describe the utterings of Trump 1.0, without evidence — should be adjudicated meticulously and with the utmost care. But the dog-rape bit is transparently deranged and self-discrediting and the fact that it appears on the same footing as the other allegations is sort of crazy.
Yes, but if there is any evidence it should be produced. If not, then the claim should be discarded–ideally via an admission by Kristof!
Indeed.
What makes this clearly an opinion piece is that Kristof has concluded the allegations are true. He is not simply reporting them. For instance, he says “Israeli leaders . . . have built a security apparatus where sexual violence has become . . . standard operating procedure.” He goes on to claim that “this is sexual violence in which the United States is complicit.” In a perverse twist on balance, he imputes guilt by parallelism: “The Israeli government rejects suggestions that it sexually abuses Palestinians, just as Hamas denied raping Israeli women.” And in an effort to shore up his own claims, he ends where he started, again invoking “the 49-page United Nations report last year” that recounted cases of “Israel’s ‘systematically’ subjecting Palestinians to ‘sexualized torture’.” I’ll let others decide whether the tone and content of that report strengthens Kristof’s case.
Kristof’s strongest observation is this: “The blunt reality is that when there are no consequences, we humans are capable of immense depravity toward those we are taught to scorn as subhuman.” Indeed, we are. Which is why Jerry is correct in insisting on investigations rather than in waving off the allegations. Even if not widespread, a single breakdown of military discipline, especially if resulting in crimes, needs to be nixed lest it spread.
The first link from the articles’ list is broken :
The Israeli government responds in theTimes of Israel c
Actually, there would be no difficulty in getting a male dog to dry-hump a restrained prisoner. It would still be humiliating.
That was far too difficult for me, so I skipped most of it. But a key corroboration would be if Israeli IDF members were to come forward as whistle-blowers, then that would do it for me. Otherwise, this just goes into the “I don’t know if it’s true” bin.
Sexual assault and other prison violence — if true it should be punished. Even in this double-standard world, Israel (the Jewish state) must do what is right. I say this ‘as a Jew.’
I can believe that the odious article by the odious Kristof was timed to blunt the report from Israel. If so, shame on already shameful anti-Israel rag known as The NY Times.
“…conversations with 14 men and women who said they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces…”
Don’t lump together settlers and security forces. No excuse for settler violence. But that is not official, not (I hope!) government sanctioned. Violence by security officers is different. To the extent that that may be true, it is a blight on the state and must be stopped.
Dastardly Israeli Jew here. And apologies in advance for the length of this post.
First of all, all such allegations are investigated by units of the Military Police, and other organizations if necessary.
Israel has a people’s army. All sorts of people are drafted, and a few could be, as we say, the wrong sort. Nevertheless, any such activity would also be observed by the right sort—draftees, officers, and reservists, who would certainly report it. Such a thing could not be kept secret here, and there would be nationwide outrage—including many voters of the ruling Likud party.
One might think that such an outrageous accusation would be too far-fetched to be believed by rational people in Western society. Yes, we have been accuse of every atrocity from the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon to the World Trade Center attack to using Christian blood in our matza. These are the standard accusations by our enemies. But when columnists for the NYT propagate them, without any source other than the members of terrorist (not “militant”) organizations, it means more than a fool of an opinion columnist not checking his sources. It shows that anti-semitism has spread to “respectable” people, and that should give all moral people reason to worry. And it is especially notable that it happened at the time when the report on Hamas sexual abuse (documented by the abusers themselves) came out. One really wonders if Kristof is trying to cover for Hamas.
Note that I am not suggesting that Palestinian prisoners are treated with kid gloves. As was mentioned above, there have been isolated cases of serious abuse. But those were exposed by Israelis, and investigated by Israel (still ongoing). Kristof and the NYT ignore such facts, and instead choose to propagate the most egregious anti-Semitic conspiracy tales.
I am proud to serve in the IDF. We endeavor to follow the IDF code of conduct, which is based on a “purity of arms” concept. Of course, in war, sometimes behavior falls short of the ideal. But we do try to minimize that. Sometimes that even involves increasing risk to our own soldiers—such as when minimizing risk to enemy civilians. We know that people like Kristof will never appreciate those efforts. But we don’t behave like that to pease people like Kristof. We do it because it is the right thing to do. It is the IDF code of conduct, and I am proud of that code, and to serve in that military.
+2
Thank you, Starwolf. Both for your comments and for your very important service.
Agreed. Thank you for your service in the IDF. Israel is the only country in the world where Jews are welcomed without reservation. Israel is my security blanket. We need a strong Israel and the people’s army is what makes that happen.
Thank you from me, too, Starwolf. The Israeli Defence Force stands at the edge (the right edge) of civilization with barbarity just beyond the pointed ends of your bayonets. The world owes you big-time. If this preposterous story has any truth I trust the Service will give it the investigation it deserves. Even if it’s true, it doesn’t change anything about the moral balance of what you do. It has all the earmarks of a blood libel, though.
Walk with Israel, 7 June in Toronto. We’ll be there.
havent raised and bred dogs for decades im not so sure that there would be a physical or physiological issue minus the rape and anal part. There has certainly been reports worldwide of similar bestiality behaviour
Au contraire…
You mean this Nicholas Kristof?
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/opinion/kristof-joining-a-dinner-in-a-muslim-brotherhood-home.html
Ever since I read his 1980s’ feuilletons from China–it was startling to me how wrong he was about almost everything (I’d lived there two years)–he’s been nothing but a dangerous joke to me.
Similar lurid accusations of trained rape dogs were hurled at the occupying US forces in Iraq. Seems many inhabitants of that region of the world have some rather deranged fantasy fetishes.
Consider for a moment, Nick Kristof is an even less reliable source than ANYBODY who breathes. He has been discredited over and over. He’s even less regarded than Tom Friedman, and half as bright.
@swiperight Colin Wright has addressed – from a biological standpoint – the absurdity of this latest fantasy of the well funded Palestinian Victim Industrial Complex.
Why are we even debating this cretin’s untruths?
This kind of bs dives me bonkers, even as a dog owner.
Further – it costs $30-40K to train a dog to be a companion to a blind person, to hone dog skills to be socially acceptable in hundreds of little ways. But dog rape? Please.
Why even? Is there no other way to torture prisoners? I thought Jooz were “good with money”?
You can FRIGHTEN people with dogs – particularly 3rd worlders from places where they treat dogs badly so they’re frightened of them… but THIS? Puh-lease!
I’ll say also – the story has legs, like my own springy puppy: it is a golden feast for the low IQ Paltard crowd, steaming in their poo encampments on a campus near you!
D.A.
NYC 🗽
Training dogs to rape humans is, unfortunately, definitely possible and well-documented. There are a number of infamous cases; the two best documented that I’m aware of are
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Olderock: Ingrid Olderock was a professional torturer for Augusto Pinochet, known as “the woman of the dogs”. Her atrocities are extremely well-documented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Parker_Ray: David Parker Ray was a serial killer who is reported to have had dogs rape his victims.
This obviously doesn’t prove it’s happening in Israel today, but it is well documented that it can and has happened, so the people arguing that it’s impossible are definitely wrong.
I wouldn’t say that either of the two Wiki articles were what one would call convincing. If those are the “best documented”, I’d hate to see the rest of the range.
I trust that Israel will thoroughly investigate the allegations, as they always do, whether it’s the 2024 prisoner rape caught on video and assessed by medical doctors (charges dropped, thus IDF fully and rightfully vindicated) or the accusation of a “‘deliberate'” Oct. 13 2023 strike on Reuters journalists in southern Lebanon, which PCEE predicted would be proven wrong (correctly predicted I want to ad – although I’m not sure if there was a follow-up, but assume there was).
Whether or not this is exaggerated or fabricated, the UN OHCHR, B’Tselem and other groups have been documenting widespread torture and abuse of prisoners for many years.
This link
https://www.somo.nl/unleashing-terror-dutch-dogs-in-israels-war-crimes/
describes how a dutch dog training company exported over 100 trained military dogs to Israel going back over 10 years with many documented instances of the dogs being used to attack Palestinians.
The truth is hard to find sometimes, but there seems plenty of evidence that Israel has engaged in systematic human rights abuses for many years.
I read most of the linked article. I saw many source citations – all that I checked lead to Palestinian orgs. It seems SOMO does not use primary sources.
That’s not evidence of them lying. But I do not see source criticism that would be needed for a sound claim.
Your citation is no more credible than Kristof’s “evidence”. From Grok, when I asked it if SOMO was a pro-Palestinian organization:
Is SOMO pro-Palestinian?
“Human rights violations”, if any can be found, are uniquely cited to challenge the right of Israel to exist as a state. Everywhere else they are just tut-tutted at, or excused as just the sort of thing that coloured people are sadly prone to do. If they are “systemic . . . for many years”, so much the better. It’s “See? I told you Israel was rotten to the core! It should be rolled up and pushed into the Sea.”
One of the sources cited by Kristof is the “Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor” (or something like that. That organization has also accused Israel of harvesting organs for medical research and transplantation.
This, of course, would have to occur in Israeli hospitals and universities. Do people believe that such things could happen without at least some doctors and researchers knowing and reporting?
My day job was as a professor in a very high-tech biomedical research laboratory, focusing on (among other things) certain fatal diseases. And as most such people do, I severed on a number of medical boards reviewing use of human subjects and tissues. I do not believe that use of human tissue from unwilling subjects would be possible in Israel without becoming known. Even when someone wishes to donate their organs for transplantation, their wishes must be recorded in a specific process in order for the medical community to use the organs. And for human organs or tissue to be used for research, the process is even more stringent. In the past, I needed human brain tissue form patients who had died from certain diseases. Such tissue was available from a Brain Bank maintained by a university and hospital system in the US. The process for getting the issue was, of course, rigorous. But in addition, to import such tissue into Israel, and to get approval for use here, was a major rigamarole. I write this to show that use of human tissue, even donated human tissue, is monitored in Israel, just as it is in many other countries. A laboratory in a university or hospital simply could not get around these restrictions. And even if it somehow managed to do so, how could they publish their results? How would they explain the source of that tissue, as all scientific and medical journals demand?
And transplantation? In Israel, one sees true coexistence between Jew and Arab in hospitals. There are Jewish and Arab patients, nurses, doctors and technicians—at all levels, including Department Chairs and Hospital Chief Medical Officers. Does anyone think that our Arab colleagues would support use of tissue stolen form people who might well be related to them?
As in the case of the dog rapes, these claims do not stand up under careful analysis and critical thinking. Both of which seem to be beyond people like Nicholas Kristof.
Again, apologies for the length of the post.
This is a bit over the word count but I will let it pass. However, it would be better if you stopped apologizing for long posts and simply make shorter ones. Thank you.
Starwolf, I am glad I did my morning check to see what comments arrived from Europe during my overnight. Thank you once again for setting the record straight with your ground-truth details from being there.
My skepticism about reports from Gaza grew when they reported infant deaths from cold in Jan. 2025. It doesn’t get to freezing temperatures there, and Sacagawea, a teenager, kept her baby from freezing when she spent the winter in North Dakota, where it was probably 40-45 degrees below zero. They may have been inspired by stories from Afghanistan, where it does get cold, but I was disgusted that the Afghans didn’t figure out how to bundle the babies next to them and keep them warm. Generations of people in the far north have managed.
Maybe the babies left to die of cold had cleft palates and were unable to feed. Especially when combined with cleft lip this is an instantly diagnosable and intensely disfiguring condition with certain prognosis, which laymen can readily grasp. Gaza has a high rate of congenital anomalies as the lurid photos of “starvation” showed.
https://x.com/IsraelMFA/status/2054896697432519059?s=20