Journalist Dan Margalit resigns after assault allegations

Eight women have claimed the reporter sexually assaulted or harassed them.

By AMY SPIRO
Updated: OCTOBER 18, 2018 18:57
Dan Margalit (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Dan Margalit
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Veteran Israeli reporter Dan Margalit announced Thursday that he was suspending himself from journalistic activity after a series of sexual assault allegations.
"In light of the controversy that arose, I decided to suspend myself from journalistic activities, Margalit tweeted on Thursday evening. "Already on Tuesday morning, I told Haaretz editor Aluf Benn that I resigned from the newspaper."
On Wednesday, Haaretz reported that five women accused Margalit, 80, of sexual misconduct dating back several decades. Several of the women said the reporter sexually assaulted them while they were working in the 1980s. On Wednesday and Thursday, three more women alleged that Margalit had assaulted or harassed them in the past.
Margalit's statement to Haaretz earlier this week, however, was defiant.
"There’s nothing to these claims about incidents that allegedly happened more than 30 years ago,” he said. “I don’t intend to devote my remaining years to an argument that has no chance at this moment, given the prevailing mood.”
Margalit worked for Haaretz from 1964 to 1991. Over the years he also worked for Maariv and Israel Hayom, and anchored TV shows for Channel 2, Channel Ten and the public broadcaster Channel 1. He later returned to Haaretz, where he currently wrote a column for the newspaper until this week.
On Wednesday, a Haaretz spokesman told The Jerusalem Post that Margalit's scheduled column would not be published this week, But he would not at the time comment on the columnist's future at the newspaper.