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We are now in the timeline where the journalistic integrity of the New York Times rests upon whether or not it is physically possible to train a dog to anally rape a human.
The New York Times ran an opinion article by Nicholas Kristof wherein a number of Palestinians report being raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in Israeli prisons. There’s not much in the way of physical evidence, but that is hardly unusual in rape crimes. Israel has strenuously denied the allegations, characterizing them as blood libel. It seems to be a he-said/she-said that comes down to whether you believe the Palestinian prisoners (who often have ties to Hamas or other extremist groups, hence why they ended up in Israeli prisons) or the IDF.
Certain enterprising young pro-Israel influencers think they can to better than appeal to untrustworthiness. They puport to have found a smoking gun that proves the NYT published a complete fabrication in order to libel the State of Israel, and by extension all Jews. One of the more salacious anecdotes regards a man from Gaza who alleges that he was raped by a dog.
If, in fact, such a thing were impossible, then it would prove without doubt that the paper of record recklessly printed unverified falsehoods. We are now in the “doctors arguing with the author about the medical literature” stage of the discourse. See, even though we have documented evidence that dogs can cause rectal injury to humans, in none of those reports was the initial contact involuntary on the part of the human.
I am not well acquainted with dogs, but my understanding is that it is not particularly hard to get them to hump things. I guess the people making this argument are hoping that others won’t want to think too hard about the mechanics of dog rape.
Despite calls and rumors to the contrary, The Times so far has declined to retract the article.
Unless you’re just having fun with it this post reads to me as if it’s way, way, way too credulous of the dog-sleights-man.
The question isn’t if a dog could mechanically rape a human being. (Although it would be a moderately disordered dog that would rape a man: what breed are we talking anyways?) The question is if Israeli jailors would sic a dog on their captive with the intent for the dog to rape him. (Actually, how does that work mechanically: did they tie him head down ass up?)
It’s a fairly unusual accusation. It requires e.g. that the Israelis have rape dogs. Which the jailors are willing to use. Without this being exposed in any provable way. Is it possible? Well, sure, technically, but why haven’t I heard of this sort of thing before? Do the Iranians have rapehunds? Did the Nazis sic specially trained dogs on their victims? I don’t recall anything like this in Leviticus. It’s not in Bernal Diaz.
The alternative, much more plausible event: “It didn’t happen. We made it up. It’s not real.” The story was fabricated because it sounded good. The victim hallucinated. Something was lost in translation. A rumor got out of hand. Those are all explanations consistent with everything I’ve ever observed in human nature.
Extradordinary claims require exorbiditrary evidence? It seems much much likelier that people will believe anything bad about Israel than than the dog didn’t even need any peanut butter.
I wouldn't have believed most of the things that happened at Abu Ghraib if there hadn't been pictures of it. Some people will do weird shit if they have the oppurtunity.
Abu Ghraib seemed more like "assholes taking an opportunity to do sadistic shit". Rape dogs seems like the kind of thing you'd need training programs for, with like, budgets and performance evaluations.
I don't know, I doubt we will be getting solid scientific evidence on how easy it is to get a big dog without special training to mount an unwilling human who has been tied up in "receptive" position anytime soon, but per the Abu Ghraib example + other better-evidenced Israeli misconduct I certainly would not dismiss this on "these soldiers would not do such a thing" grounds.
Of course, there's no reason it couldn't be made up, either; but then if you think the NYT would make this up or eat it up from a source without properly verifying it by whatever means they have available, I would like you to apply the same degree of skepticism to press-reported atrocities even when you agree with the direction (for many here, I guess that would be Russians in Ukraine e.g. the Bucha story?).
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