Why hasn’t the New York Times corrected its ‘dog rape’ lie?

‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.’

This saying, popularised by American astronomer Carl Sagan, was clearly unknown to the New York Times and journalist Nicholas Kristof when they recently accused Israel of a systemic policy of sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners. In a 3,750-word piece, published last month, Kristof alleges that a ‘Gaza journalist’ was raped by a dog that had been ‘coached’ for that purpose. He writes that a dog was summoned and, with encouragement from a handler, ‘mounted’ a prisoner. The prisoner ‘tried to dislodge the dog… but it penetrated him, while guards laughed and took photographs’.

This is the journalistic equivalent of a five-alarm fire – and all the alarm bells should have sounded for the New York Times’ editors. This is where extraordinary evidence is required – yet not a shred was provided.

For a claim to merit publication, extraordinary evidence has to meet two thresholds. First, is the claim plausible? Second, is the claim provable? If the claim is not plausible, it is not automatically untrue, but it should only be published if accompanied by absolute proof. No one would believe the moon is made of green cheese, and that should end the question – unless someone brings back an indisputable sample of green cheese from the moon’s surface. That’s proof of the implausible. But the case of the ‘rape dogs’ goes beyond even the ‘green cheese’ standard.

There is no evidence that dogs can be trained to rape men and no credible, documentable accounts exist of dogs being trained this way. Alan Howe of the Australian asked a dog expert of 34 years, who explained that it failed the plausibility test. ‘Canine erection is a reflexive neuroendocrine response to female reproductive pheromones – it is not a voluntary behaviour and cannot be trained or reliably triggered on command’, the expert said. ‘The specific act alleged is not biologically plausible.’

Did no one at the New York Times wonder about this? This should be the first question any editor would ask – and who knows how many editors Kristof’s column passed through. We do know that, in a separate statement, the editors, still offering no evidence, doubled down on their support for the column – essentially stating that including the alleged rape dogs in the piece was neither an oversight nor a mistake on their part. Was this incurious behaviour deliberate? We have to ask, because for now neither Kristof nor his editors have tried to establish that dogs can be taught this unnatural behaviour.

After flunking the plausibility test, the opinion piece failed the probability test as well. Badly, in fact: no names, dates, locations, photographs or any tangible evidence that dog-rape ever happened. The only accounts are hearsay from anonymous prisoners – who have an obvious agenda – and no response from Israeli prison authorities, former guards or others who might offer conflicting views. Kristof’s only independent corroboration was a nebulous quote from former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, who said pointedly after publication, ‘I did not validate these claims’. There are also subtle errors, including a claim that after the abuse, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) guards took cigarette breaks – even though smoking is strictly forbidden in these compounds.

The silence that has met Kristof’s claims is also telling. Given such an explosive claim, where is the follow-up by other news outlets that have no compunction about publishing stories critical of the Israeli government? Where are the Guardian, the BBC, the Washington Post and others? Are they content to leave the New York Times marooned on a journalistic island? For that matter, why has the NYT settled for issuing an anodyne statement of support for the story instead of sending reporters out to verify the allegations? Rather than perform journalism, the editors appear to be content to rest on their reputation as ‘the newspaper of record’.

And what a record that has been of late. It includes the frontpage allegation that the IDF was responsible for the deadly explosion at the Al-Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza in October 2023, later discovered to be the result of a misfired rocket by Islamic Jihad. Add to that the Pulitzer prize-winning front-page picture in July last year of an emaciated Palestinian child – evidence, supposedly, of Israel’s deliberate starvation of Gaza – who actually turned out to be suffering from a chronic disease, not malnourishment. The child’s perfectly healthy brother was cropped out of the photograph. Both these sensational frontpage stories in the newspaper of record were demonstrably false and all it took was some competent reporting to prove it – the kind of reporting the New York Times purports to do.

The most damning reproach of the New York Times’ ersatz journalism came by two practiced journalists, the aforementioned Alan Howe and Brendan O’Neill of spiked. Howe wrote in the Australian: ‘If some deviant genius in the Israel Prison Service has trained dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners, that’s page one. It’s the splash. It’s not a throwaway line 2,500 words into a 3,750-word report.’

O’Neill followed this up by asking:

‘Does Kristof really believe the dog-rape story? Does the NYT itself believe it? If they do, why didn’t they lead with this truly extraordinary, epoch-shaking story? And if they don’t – if, like some of us, they recognise that pungent whiff of black propaganda – then why publish it at all? Why commit to print such a malignant smear with its uncanny echoes of medieval libels?’

Kristof and the New York Times have avoided these issues with the claim, ‘all rape should be condemned’. That goes without saying, but in this case, it is the quintessential example of a straw man. The universal condemnation of rape has nothing to do with slipshod journalism. Both Kristof and his paper certainly know better as to what they have done here, especially considering the timing of the piece, right before the release of a report on sexual violence on 7 October by Hamas.

Yet it is not necessary to invoke any nefarious agenda to realise some of the most seasoned journalists in the world have indulged in egregiously irresponsible reporting and editorial oversight. The public deserves better than Kristof and his editors delivered. Those readers deserve proof of this extraordinary claim.

A long-ago Chicago newspaper editor coined the first rule of journalism: ‘If your mother tells you she loves you, kick her smartly in the shins and make her prove it.’ How far both Nicholas Kristof and the New York Times have departed from this principle.

Cory Franklin’s The Covid Diaries 2020-2024: Anatomy of a Contagion As It Happened, is now available on Amazon in Kindle and book form.