Ali Abunimah
6 February 2024
The fallout has been growing from the so-called investigation by The New York Times into alleged mass rapes of Israeli women by Hamas fighters on 7 October – as I discuss with my colleague Nora Barrows-Friedman in the video above.
As The Electronic Intifada has reported, Israel’s sensational claims are not backed by any substantial evidence.
Rather, the lurid allegations of sexual violence appear calculated to demonize Palestinians and justify or distract from Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Yet mainstream media and politicians continue to disseminate this atrocity propaganda without regard for the obvious holes in the Israeli narrative.
The Times article, published in late December, gave added credence to these claims, especially since its lead writer was Jeffrey Gettleman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter.
But as we demonstrated, it is a journalistic fraud.
Members of the family of Gal Abdush, the deceased woman portrayed by Gettleman as a victim of the alleged “broad pattern” of sexual violence have repudiated the article and accused the Times of misleading and manipulating them. They say there is no evidence that Abdush was raped.
Gettleman also relied extensively for “evidence” on ZAKA, an extremist Jewish group that collects bodies and body parts for burial, and whose leaders have fabricated numerous accounts of atrocities from 7 October.
A recent investigation by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper accuses ZAKA of using bodies of people killed on 7 October as props for fundraising and that as part of its effort “to get media exposure, ZAKA spread accounts of atrocities that never happened, released sensitive and graphic photos, and acted unprofessionally on the ground.”
Now some of Gettleman’s colleagues at the Times are also raising questions, wary of being caught in yet another of the newspaper of record’s notorious journalistic scandals.
On 28 January, The Intercept revealed that the Times pulled a high-profile episode of its podcast The Daily that was based on Gettleman’s mass rapes article.
The decision not to air the episode was taken “amid a furious internal debate about the strength of the paper’s original reporting on the subject,” according to The Intercept.
The episode was supposed to go out on 9 January but as criticism of Gettleman’s reporting grew internally and externally, The Daily shelved the original script and put the episode on hold.
A new script was drafted, one that according to The Intercept, “allowed for uncertainty, and asked open-ended questions that were absent from the original article.”
But even that new script “remains the subject of significant controversy” within the Times newsroom and has yet to air. Some New York Times staffers fear “another Caliphate-level journalistic debacle,” The Intercept reports.
That’s a reference to the 2018 multipart podcast Caliphate, which the Times had to retract after it turned out that the main character – a Canadian Muslim claiming to have been a former ISIS fighter in Syria – had fabricated his entire story.
But rather than learning the lessons from this – or its false reporting on Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” that helped pave the way for the 2003 US-led war of aggression against Iraq – the Times leadership appears to be doubling down.
“There seems to be no self-awareness at the top,” one Times staffer told The Intercept.
The newspaper’s editors allowed Gettleman to publish a follow-up article on 29 January, in an attempt to patch up his original story.
As I explain in the video above – a segment from The Electronic Intifada’s livestream of 31 January – Gettleman fails to address the criticisms of his story.
Instead he spins, distorts and provides new claims that lack any credibility – anything but take responsibility for his egregious malpractice and spreading of atrocity propaganda.
The strategy of doubling down on lies seems to be paying off for him. On 9 February, Gettleman is set to speak at a seminar hosted by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton at Columbia University, titled “Preventing and Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence.”
In 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department disseminated false claims that Libyan forces had been given the drug Viagra so that they could carry out mass rapes as a weapon for war.
These fabrications were part of the Obama administration’s push to justify the US military intervention that overthrew the country’s leader Muammar Gaddafi and, among other things, turned Libya into a haven for human trafficking, including torture and sexual violence.
This week’s event at Columbia University – where Clinton now teaches – is set to be another forum for her to spread atrocity propaganda to justify war, this time on behalf of Israel.
The fallout has been growing from the so-called investigation by The New York Times into alleged mass rapes of Israeli women by Hamas fighters on 7 October – as I discuss with my colleague Nora Barrows-Friedman in the video above.
As The Electronic Intifada has reported, Israel’s sensational claims are not backed by any substantial evidence.
Rather, the lurid allegations of sexual violence appear calculated to demonize Palestinians and justify or distract from Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Yet mainstream media and politicians continue to disseminate this atrocity propaganda without regard for the obvious holes in the Israeli narrative.
The Times article, published in late December, gave added credence to these claims, especially since its lead writer was Jeffrey Gettleman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter.
But as we demonstrated, it is a journalistic fraud.
Members of the family of Gal Abdush, the deceased woman portrayed by Gettleman as a victim of the alleged “broad pattern” of sexual violence have repudiated the article and accused the Times of misleading and manipulating them. They say there is no evidence that Abdush was raped.
Gettleman also relied extensively for “evidence” on ZAKA, an extremist Jewish group that collects bodies and body parts for burial, and whose leaders have fabricated numerous accounts of atrocities from 7 October.
A recent investigation by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper accuses ZAKA of using bodies of people killed on 7 October as props for fundraising and that as part of its effort “to get media exposure, ZAKA spread accounts of atrocities that never happened, released sensitive and graphic photos, and acted unprofessionally on the ground.”
Now some of Gettleman’s colleagues at the Times are also raising questions, wary of being caught in yet another of the newspaper of record’s notorious journalistic scandals.
On 28 January, The Intercept revealed that the Times pulled a high-profile episode of its podcast The Daily that was based on Gettleman’s mass rapes article.
The decision not to air the episode was taken “amid a furious internal debate about the strength of the paper’s original reporting on the subject,” according to The Intercept.
The episode was supposed to go out on 9 January but as criticism of Gettleman’s reporting grew internally and externally, The Daily shelved the original script and put the episode on hold.
A new script was drafted, one that according to The Intercept, “allowed for uncertainty, and asked open-ended questions that were absent from the original article.”
But even that new script “remains the subject of significant controversy” within the Times newsroom and has yet to air. Some New York Times staffers fear “another Caliphate-level journalistic debacle,” The Intercept reports.
That’s a reference to the 2018 multipart podcast Caliphate, which the Times had to retract after it turned out that the main character – a Canadian Muslim claiming to have been a former ISIS fighter in Syria – had fabricated his entire story.
But rather than learning the lessons from this – or its false reporting on Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” that helped pave the way for the 2003 US-led war of aggression against Iraq – the Times leadership appears to be doubling down.
“There seems to be no self-awareness at the top,” one Times staffer told The Intercept.
The newspaper’s editors allowed Gettleman to publish a follow-up article on 29 January, in an attempt to patch up his original story.
As I explain in the video above – a segment from The Electronic Intifada’s livestream of 31 January – Gettleman fails to address the criticisms of his story.
Instead he spins, distorts and provides new claims that lack any credibility – anything but take responsibility for his egregious malpractice and spreading of atrocity propaganda.
The strategy of doubling down on lies seems to be paying off for him. On 9 February, Gettleman is set to speak at a seminar hosted by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton at Columbia University, titled “Preventing and Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence.”
In 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department disseminated false claims that Libyan forces had been given the drug Viagra so that they could carry out mass rapes as a weapon for war.
These fabrications were part of the Obama administration’s push to justify the US military intervention that overthrew the country’s leader Muammar Gaddafi and, among other things, turned Libya into a haven for human trafficking, including torture and sexual violence.
This week’s event at Columbia University – where Clinton now teaches – is set to be another forum for her to spread atrocity propaganda to justify war, this time on behalf of Israel.
Additional resources on Israel’s “mass rapes” propaganda
“CNN report claiming sexual violence on October 7 relied on non-credible witnesses, some with undisclosed ties to Israeli govt,” Mondoweiss (1 December 2023)
“Watch: Debunking Israel’s “mass rape” propaganda,” The Electronic Intifada (4 December 2023)
“Despite lack of evidence, allegations of Hamas ‘mass rape’ are fueling Israeli genocide in Gaza,” Mondoweiss (8 December 2023)
“ZAKA is not a trustworthy source for allegations of sexual violence on October 7,” Mondoweiss, (30 December 2023)
“Family of key case in New York Times October 7 sexual violence report renounces story, says reporters manipulated them,” Mondoweiss (3 January 2024)
“Watch: NY Times ‘investigation’ of mass rape by Hamas falls apart,” The Electronic Intifada (9 January 2024)
“Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy ‘Hamas mass rape’ report,” The Grayzone (10 January 2024)
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