Six women accuse veteran Israeli journalist of sexual assault, harassment

Haaretz breaks report on allegations against Dan Margalit, an author and television host, who in the past was a top writer for the daily

Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

Israeli journalist Dan Margalit in Tel Aviv, March 14, 2017 (Gideon Markowicz/POOL)
Israeli journalist Dan Margalit in Tel Aviv, March 14, 2017 (Gideon Markowicz/POOL)

Six women have accused prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit of sexual misconduct, including physical assault and harassment.

Haaretz reported on Wednesday morning that five women were claiming Margalit had assaulted them. The report included accusations by Hannah Kim, who is a former journalist for the Ha’ir paper, Hadashot TV news, and Haaretz itself.

Orit Shohat, another former Haaretz journalist, also told her story to the paper, along with three others who asked to not be named in the report.

Hours after the publication of the Haaretz story, another woman, who also asked not to be identified, told Radio103 that Margalit had assaulted her in a car after giving her a ride home.

Margalit, 80, was a senior writer for Haaretz in the past and currently writes op-ed columns for the paper. He has also hosted television shows and authored books, as well as worked for other print and online media outlets over the years.

All of the women told similar stories of incidents that allegedly took place during the 1980s and 1990s. Margalit, the women recalled, would choose moments when he was alone in a room with them, back them up against a wall or a heavy object, and then forcibly press himself against their bodies. On some occasions, Margalit also exposed himself, some of the women said.

Kim and another woman not named in the report passed a polygraph test at the request of Haaretz.

In a statement to Haaretz, Marglit denied all the accusations.

Kim initially shared her story in a Facebook post two weeks ago as part of the #Ididntcomplain campaign against sexual assault and harassment. At the time, Kim didn’t identify the alleged culprit.

Israeli journalist Hannah Kim. (Facebook)

Speaking to Haaretz, she recalled an occasion on which Margalit cornered her alone in a room at the Knesset. Exposing his penis, he pressed himself against her while she had her back to the wall, Kim recalled. It was only when another journalist entered the room that the incident ended.

“That trauma is burning in me to this day,” Kim said, and noted that there had never been any personal or special connection between the two. “It was a nightmare. First of all, because I was afraid and it is hard for me to admit that I was afraid. As far as I am concerned, it was very close to rape.”

Kim reportedly told the story to various people over the years, four of whom told the paper that they had heard it from her in the past.

At the time, she did not think about reporting the incident because she didn’t want to be a “complainer,” she said, but the #Ididntcomplain campaign encouraged her to speak up.

Shohat described two similar incidents, one at the Haaretz building and another at the Knesset.

“He pressed me against a table, and pressed his body onto mine, until I pushed him and made it clear to him that it won’t happen again,” Shohat said of the incident in the Knesset. She said that when she told another female journalist at the paper about the incident, the woman recalled a similar experience.

Of the three other women, who all asked to remain anonymous, one recalled an incident in 1993, when she was in her 20s, in which Margalit pressed himself against her and tried to kiss her. According to the report, the woman tried to escape from Margalit and told him that she had a boyfriend, to which he allegedly responded that he too had a partner and “that doesn’t need to stop anything.” She reportedly passed a polygraph test about her claims.

Of the other two women who made accusations, one claimed Margalit exposed himself to her during a work meeting, and the other said that when she met with him to discuss a television show he was going to host, Margalit blatantly stared at her body while making suggestive comments about her appearance and what he wanted to do with her.

Margalit wrote in a statement to Haaretz that “there is no truth to the claims about incidents that were claimed to have happened more than 30 years ago. I don’t intend to dedicate the rest of my years in a pointless argument at this time and in the prevailing atmosphere.”

In 2016, veteran writer Ari Shavit resigned from Haaretz following sexual assault accusations by a US Jewish journalist and another woman.

In November 2015, Yinon Magal resigned from the Knesset over claims of sexual assault when he headed the Walla news website. The Tel Aviv district attorney’s office announced the following February it had halted the probe into Magal after police said they had not found enough evidence to recommend an indictment.

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