Rioting for the Right to Rape Palestinians

This is what it's like to live in Israel today.

(Right-wing Israelis demonstrate against the detention of nine Israeli soldiers who are suspected of abusing a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman prison. Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images)

“Half of the Israeli public is no longer in favor of the war,” one friend told me Saturday night as we witnessed thousands of Israelis take to the streets to protest the Israeli government under the slogan, “Elections Now.” “Yes, but the other half is all-in, and REALLY in favor,” responded his wife. “And they are the more powerful group.”

She, of course, is right. For months, reports of torture and rape have emerged from Israel’s military base turned torture camp, Sde Teiman, where Israel has imprisoned thousands of Palestinians without charge. I wrote about it in a previous diary earlier this month. Palestinians who have emerged from this torture camp refer to it as the “slaughterhouse” with horrendous tales of torture, rape, abuse, and sleep deprivation being meted out by Israeli prison guards. Nearly 30 Palestinians have died while in Sde Teiman and other prisons, according to the information provided to date. 

And while the precise chain of events is unclear, what we do know is that the Israeli military advocate general decided to dispatch the military police to question nine Israeli soldiers on suspicion of gang-raping and sodomizing a Palestinian man from Gaza at Sde Teiman. The man was rushed to the hospital where he exhibited signs of rape, including a ruptured bowel and broken ribs. It would be a mistake to simply think that Israel’s actions in prisons like Sde Teiman came only after October. Since becoming Israel’s national security minister in 2022, ultranationalist Itamar Ben Gvir has made prisons his target, with him authorizing abuse against Palestinians. He has also called for the death penalty to solve problems of overcrowding.

The arrival of the military police was violently resisted by the soldiers being detained for questioning and by others at the site. The soldiers barricaded themselves inside the camp and pepper-sprayed the military police. Now, to be clear, Israeli investigations are usually “rubber stamps” to Israeli war crimes, with few charges ever laid against Israeli soldiers. But for some members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party and his coalition, the idea of merely questioning those accused of gang rape crosses a red line. As a result, they mobilized in defense – not of the gang rape victim – but of the accused rapists.

Crowds stormed the Sde Teiman prison camp with soldiers struggling to expel them. The Israelis who stormed the prison included Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu (the man said that dropping a “nuclear bomb” on the Gaza Strip is “an option.”). Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich later expressed his support for the soldiers “I call on the military advocate general, take your hands off our heroic fighters.” Hours later, as the Israeli soldiers were taken to another military base, more than 200 people, including members of Knesset tried to storm the base to release the soldiers being held for questioning.

(Right-wing Israeli activists attempt to break into an Israeli military base after nine Israeli soldiers were held for questioning over the abuse of a Palestinian detainee. Photo by Matan Golan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

In protest of the raid, members of the Israeli Knesset announced that they would convene an urgent debate to discuss the arrest of the soldiers – not the abuse that is being meted out to Palestinians. That would be absurd in Israeli think. To highlight the actual absurdity of this position, lawmaker Ahmad Tibi asked, “Is inserting an explosive into the rectum of a person legitimate?” Likud Knesset member Hanoch Milvetsky responded with what has been the position of the right (more than 50% of the Knesset, remember): “If he is a Nukhba [Hamas commando], everything is legitimate.”

This is what happens when you claim to be a “moral” army or an army that was “forced into” genocide – you can always justify everything. And this is precisely what Israel has done. 

However, unlike in the past where (some) convicted soldiers get a slap on the wrist, these soldiers will likely get a pat on the back, just as Elor Azaria got when he shot a motionless Palestinian man in the head in 2016. He was named “Man of the Year.”

BREAKING NEWS TOWN HALL ON HANIYEH’S ASSASSINATION

Israeli peace activist and negotiator Gershon Baskin, who is perhaps the only Israeli to have direct contacts with Hamas over the past two decades, will join Mehdi for a live town hall on Thursday morning ET, to react to the Netanyahu government’s assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.

The town hall is reserved for paid subscribers and will include a Q&A with those who join. If you are not a paid subscriber, become one by 4 pm ET today, July 31, to have a chance to participate in this rare conversation. But if you miss that deadline, these unique town halls are a regular feature for paid subscribers, so we still encourage you to become one ASAP – especially in this news cycle!