Netanyahu and Israel threaten to sue The New York Times

But experts say a government cannot sue a news outlet.

The controversy over a piece in The New York Times continued to smolder on Thursday when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his country’s foreign ministry said they might sue the Times and the author of the article.

Earlier this week, Nicholas Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, wrote, “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians.” In it, Kristof writes about allegations of widespread rape of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. He wrote that “in wrenching interviews, Palestinians have recounted to me a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children — by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards.”