Israeli prime minister spokesman accused of harassing WSJ reporters

The English-speaking spokesman for the Israeli prime minister has stepped down after several women, including some Wall Street Journal staffers, accused him of sexual assault, reports David M. Halbfinger of The New York Times.

Halbfinger reports, “It was Mr. Keyes’s behavior toward young women that resulted in measures being taken to insulate them from his advances, according to interviews. That is why he was curbed from the Wall Street Journal’s opinion section, which he frequented to make common cause with its conservatives, in November 2013, according to several Journal employees, including four who said he propositioned them.

“The section’s deputy editor at the time, Bret Stephens — now a columnist for The New York Times — said he gave Mr. Keyes a dressing-down, calling him a ‘disgrace to men’ and ‘a disgrace as a Jew,’ and barred him from the office without an appointment.

“Mr. Keyes sent email messages to several Journal employees apologizing ‘for being less than gentlemanly,’ as he put it in at least two of the emails.

“One of those employees, Kate Havard, was an intern. Mr. Keyes, in late-night text messages, dangled the possibility of having her work for him and asked her to come to his apartment then to discuss it. When she declined, the texts show, Mr. Keyes said he would have to find someone else for the assignment.

“Another former Journal writer said that Mr. Keyes had attacked her, pushing her down on his bed and ripping her tights, after luring her to his apartment in November 2012.”

Read more here.