Olmert says NYT columnist misrepresented his statement about alleged rape of Palestinian inmates

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert says The New York Times misrepresented a statement he made in a report that alleged widespread rape of Palestinian inmates.

The column quoted Olmert near the bottom of the article, appearing to confirm the report’s contents.

“Olmert told me he didn’t know much about sexual violence against Palestinians but was not surprised by the accounts I had heard,” the writer, Nicholas Kristof, wrote in the report.

“Do I believe it happens?” Olmert told Kristof. “Definitely.”

“There are war crimes committed every day in the territories,” Olmert said.

Olmert says that Kristof misrepresented their conversation, however, by placing the quote at the end of the article, appearing to validate its allegations, when he had not.

“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,” Olmert said in a statement, according to The Free Press.

“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,” Olmert said, according to The Free Press report.