Israeli society is divided over the arrest of 10 soldiers for the brutal gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner caught on video.
ed note–as usual, a laundry list of ‘must knows’ that every Gentile with a vested interest in his/her own future survival needs to understand about all of this.
Firsto, knowing that it will not get the attention/study/discussion that it deserves, we are going to engage in an often-stated ‘protocol’, namely ‘first things first’, which in this case means homing in on the very first words used in the title of the piece itself–
‘Everything Is Legitimate’…
Given what is the deficient attention span on the part of the average Gentile concerning the ‘nuts and bolts’ of ‘authentic Torah Judah-ism’, allow us here at this humble little informational endeavor to spell out in the Kristol clearest of terms exactly WHY every evil, vile, vindictive thing that Jews do to Gentiles is considered ‘legit’–
‘When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are to possess and drives out the many nations larger and stronger than you, and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not save alive anything that breathes…Do not intermarry with them…Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons…Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their idols in the fire, for you are a people holy to the Lord your God who has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession…’ –Book of Deuteronomy
Now, as it relates to the particulars of the story below, the reason why ‘everything Is legitimate’, including the rape of Gentile prisoners, is because this is what the Jews are commanded by their Torah Judah-ism to do, specifically to ‘show them no mercy’, per the words of Moses who claims to be speaking on behalf of ‘yahweh’, the violent deity whom the Jews worship.
Al Jazeera
Video has emerged of a gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner by guards at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the Negev desert, southern Israel.
The video, which has been verified by Al Jazeera, shows the prisoner being selected from a larger group lying bound on the floor. The victim is then escorted to a wall, where guards, using their shields to hide their identity from the camera, proceed to rape and sodomize him.
The attack is believed to have been so brutal that, after he was transferred to hospital, Israeli media reported that the victim was unable to walk.
Ten soldiers were ultimately arrested for the rape in a case that has rocked Israeli society. The soldiers belong to a unit known as Force 100, which is tasked with guarding the Sde Teiman facility, according to Haaretz.
Military prosecutors released three of the arrested soldiers, adding to the two previously released by investigators following a military court hearing in Kfar Yona at which protesters gathered in support of the soldiers under arrest.
The video has shocked many within Israeli society. Some observers, including a local rights group and two UN agencies, have voiced concerns about the treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
However, for some, including the country’s far-right finance minister, the outrage has centred on the ‘crime’ of recording the video, rather than the alleged rape itself.
Bezalel Smotrich demanded ‘an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them’.
Others, including the hard right and ultranationalist politicians, such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have argued that any action – even gang rape – is ‘permissible’ if it ‘benefits the security of the state’.
Defending the indefensible
Following the arrest of the reservists, far-right mobs, some of which included government ministers, stormed the facility at Sde Teiman in southern Israel later the same day.
Unable to find and free the imprisoned soldiers, they then turned to the base at Beit Lid, 60km away, where the soldiers were being held for questioning and demanded the soldiers’ release.
That unrest continued during a high court hearing convened to hear the petitions of Sde Teiman prisoners who are alleged to have been tortured. The legal proceedings were interrupted by demonstrators who shouted ‘Disgrace’ and ‘We are the sovereign’.
Israeli pressure group Guarding the Soldiers – a new organisation formed in defence of the soldiers accused of rape – was quoted in Israeli media as saying: ‘The hearing in the high court this morning is absurd and a gift to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar and to Hamas murderers.’
Israeli politicians, including cabinet members, have also defended the accused. Ben-Gvir, who is responsible for the prison service, told Israeli media on the day of the reservists’ arrest that it was ‘shameful’ for Israel to arrest ‘our best heroes’. The same day, Smotrich, who had been among the right-wing mob to storm the prison, published a video message, saying that ‘IDF soldiers deserve respect’ and must not be treated as ‘criminals’.
On being asked by Ahmad Tibi, one of the Arab MPs within the Israeli Knesset last week if it was legitimate ‘to insert a stick into a person’s rectum’, Hanoch Milwidsky, a member of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, responded: ‘If he is Hamas, everything is legitimate to do! Everything!’
‘Just the tip of the iceberg’
The video of the alleged gang rape at Sde Teiman is the latest piece in a growing body of evidence of abuse, sexual assault and the systematic withholding of food and medical care that Palestinians endure within the Israeli prison system.
A report titled Welcome to Hell, published this week by the Israeli human rights advocacy group, B’Tselem, includes interviews with 55 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli detention centres since October 7. In firsthand accounts, the prisoners, the majority of whom were later released without charge at locations across the occupied Palestinian territory, Gaza and within Israel, recount being assaulted and sexually abused by guards.
‘The conditions at Sde Teiman aren’t unique. They’re just the tip of the iceberg,’ the organisation’s spokesperson, Shai Parnes, told Al Jazeera by phone from Jerusalem.
‘We heard similar accounts of sexual abuse, starvation and assault from separate prisoners held in 16 different locations across Israel. It was depressing. As we gathered the testimonies, we realised that every witness account was almost identical, no matter what their age, gender or location was. There’s no doubt. This kind of abuse is systematic,’ he said.
‘At odds with international law’
Allegations of the systematic abuse of prisoners within a justice system which critics say is fundamentally at odds with international law have also been detailed in a separate report published on Monday by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), and in an unpublished report – seen by Al Jazeera in March – from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Responding to warnings of overcrowding within the prison system from the security agency Shin Bet in early July, Ben-Gvir repeated his call for Palestinian prisoners to be executed, tweeting that one of his principal goals since attaining office had been to ‘worsen the conditions of the Palestinians in the prisons and to reduce their rights to the minimum required by law’.
He said: ‘Everything published about the abominable conditions’ of the Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons ‘was true’.
Human rights up for debate
The United States, Israel’s principal ally, called the allegations of sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners ‘horrific’, saying Israel must investigate ‘swiftly’ and ‘fully’.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told the media on Wednesday: ‘There ought to be zero tolerance for sexual abuse, rape of any detainee. Period. That’s a fundamental belief of the United States.’
On Thursday, the European Union also expressed dismay. Peter Stano, a spokesperson for the EU’s diplomatic service, told Politico: ‘The EU is gravely concerned by the allegations of human rights violations and abuses, including torture and sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman military facility in Israel and elsewhere.’
Nevertheless, large numbers of Jews within Israel continue to defend the conditions in which Palestinian prisoners are being held, as well as the rape alleged to have been carried out by the soldiers at Sde Teiman.
‘Look, the question really isn’t about rape,’ Ori Goldberg, a Tel Aviv-based political analyst, told Al Jazeera. ‘The question is – can Israel, or Israelis, be reproached for anything they do in defence of the state?’
In the opinion of some, Goldberg explained, no act, no matter how immoral it might appear to the outside world, is off limits, if it is carried out to further the security of Israel.
‘We even had a journalist on breakfast television criticising not the rape but rather the ‘disorganised’ way it was carried out,’ Goldberg added.
That outlook remains less than the majority view, but nevertheless, even among the Israeli liberals who argue against that view of their country and its actions, little thought is given to the Palestinian victims.
‘Oh, it’s got nothing to do with the victims,’ Goldberg said, ‘this is all about Israel.’