Two weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would sue the New York Times over an article alleging systematic rape of Palestinian detainees, there is little indication that legal action is moving forward.

Precedence shows that such a suit would have little chance of succeeding, if it could be filed at all, and could backfire by exposing Israel to requirements to disclose sensitive information it would rather keep under wraps.

For now, government departments responsible for advancing a lawsuit of this sort are staying silent about where the process stands.

The NY Times article, published May 11 by opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof, alleged “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.”

Kristof quoted testimony from Palestinians who said they’d been regularly stripped naked in prison and groped, forcibly penetrated with various objects, or been mounted and raped by specially trained dogs.

The last claim, which has circulated in anti-Israel media for some time, has recently been amplified by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a Hamas-linked group which was also a key source for Kristof’s report.

Critics called the claim a “blood libel,” and the article drew protests from both Israel and US Jewish groups.

On May 14, Netanyahu together with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar issued a joint statement describing the column as “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press.” They said that instructions had been given for “the initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.”

But no formal statements have been issued by the Foreign Ministry or the Prime Minister’s Office regarding efforts to move forward with a defamation suit, and the two offices declined to respond to requests for comment on the issue.

The Foreign Ministry’s legal department is supposedly handling the matter, but has been tight-lipped over where the process stands.

Danielle Rhoades Ha, a New York Times spokesperson, responded to the Netanyahu and Sa’ar statement by saying the suit would not hold up in court.

“The Israeli Prime Minister has threatened to file a libel lawsuit against The New York Times regarding Nicholas Kristof’s deeply reported opinion column on sexual abuse by Israel’s prison guards, soldiers, settlers, and interrogators,” the statement said. “This threat, similar to one made last year, is part of a well-worn political playbook that aims to undermine independent reporting and stifle journalism that does not fit a specific narrative. Any such legal claim would be without merit.”

The paper has stood by the article, with opinion section head Kathleen Kingsbury saying Kristoff’s reporting was rigorously fact-checked before publication “to ensure that every testimony and anecdote he personally reported was supported by independent sources.” After publication, she added, “We reviewed the factual challenges that readers and others raised… Editors found........

© The Times of Israel