Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) raged at The New York Times on Wednesday over Nicholas Kristof’s column alleging that, among other grave crimes, the Israeli authorities have trained dogs to rape prisoners.

“WTF @nytimes! Nick Kristof amplifies proven Hamas-affiliated sources and their propaganda, while the NYT continues to gloss over the systematic sexual violence, rape, and mutilation Hamas committed on October 7, now fully documented in the new Civil Commission report,” tweeted Gottheimer. “We should expect better from the paper of record, particularly with allegations as serious as these. It’s almost as if the NYT is on Hamas’ payroll.”

Under the headline, “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians,” Kristof alleged that one prisoner in Israeli custody was sexually abused in a spot where he others had met similar fates because he “found other people’s vomit, blood and broken teeth crushed into his skin,” and that another prisoner was “penetrated” by a dog.

But critics have questioned Kristof’s claims.

The Free Press’s Eli Lake revealed that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert felt Kristof had mischaracterized comments he made to the columnist and disputed the dog rape allegations in a column of his own:

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.

…

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.”

Kristof and the Times have stood by the column.

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