[News] Israeli media’s coverage of the rape of Palestinian detainees shows support for sexual violence in service of genocide

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/israeli-medias-coverage-of-the-rape-of-palestinian-detainees-shows-support-for-sexual-violence-in-service-of-genocide/?ml_recipient=129552134425281811&ml_link=129552061772596231&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-08-13&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
Israeli media’s coverage of the rape of Palestinian detainees shows support
for sexual violence in service of genocide
Adam Horowitz
August 12, 2024
------------------------------
[image: still-20859547-15000-still-1024x576.jpg]

Israel’s drama around the investigation
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/israeli-rape-of-detainees-is-the-result-of-a-society-that-sees-palestinians-as-human-animals/>
of ten soldiers suspected of gang-raping a Palestinian detainee at the Sde
Teiman torture facility keeps reaching new lows. The reaction from
Israelis, not just on the right, but also in the Israeli mainstream, has
revealed a lust for sadistic revenge and an obsession with Hamas that is
used to justify releasing all hell on Palestinians, including sexual abuse.

In fact, the media coverage of events last week paints a grim and revealing
picture of Israeli society.

It began when the mainstream Israeli Channel 12 broadcasted a report
<https://www.mako.co.il/news-law/2024_q3/Article-967f4d28f782191027.htm>
concerning the gang rape case. The report features a segment from the
security camera that caught the rape taking place — with three of the
soldiers holding their shields up so as to obscure the crime from the
camera. They knew exactly what they were doing.
Also read: Netanyahu’s willing executioners: how ordinary Israelis became
mass murderers
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/07/netanyahus-willing-executioners-how-ordinary-israelis-became-mass-murderers/>
.

But beyond the harrowing aspect of the act itself is the nature of Channel
12’s report. A full fourth of the four-minute report dedicates itself to
the scrutiny of whether the detainee was a “Nukhba” Hamas member — an elite
fighter who participated in the October 7 attack. Such a focus reflects an
obsession. It suggests that some people deserve to get gang-raped and have
objects inserted into their anus, some less so.

Let us see what Channel 12 says on this issue:

“The terrorist that appears in the documentation did not participate in the
massacre of October 7 and was not among the Nukhba forces. According to
AMAN (military intelligence) information, he is a Hamas policeman who was
involved in the drug-control department. In the intelligence report that
was submitted in his case, it was written that despite this, he is counted
with the force perpetrating acts of terror against Israel and it was
emphasized that he represents a grave risk if released. Likewise, the
terrorist was not arrested at the beginning of the war but in March. In
contradiction to what was claimed, he was not a (military) Company
Commander in Jabalia — the source of the mistake is in the interpretation
of the initials — that is, not  [military] M.P. [in Hebrew, military
terminology stands for ‘Mefaked Pluga,’ or Company Commander], but rather
M.P., which stands for ‘Mahane Plitim’ — refugee camp [in Hebrew] Jabalia.”

So, let’s pause here to just reflect upon what was said – this is a civil
servant, a policeman. But anyone remotely connected to Hamas is considered
a terrorist, because Hamas is considered a terrorist organization.
Actually, it doesn’t really matter for Israel, because like President Isaac
Herzog said
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/israeli-rape-of-detainees-is-the-result-of-a-society-that-sees-palestinians-as-human-animals/>
in October, there are simply no “uninvolved civilians” in Gaza; they are
all involved with Hamas.

But why is Channel 12 really going into all of this if it doesn’t make a
difference?

Channel 12 is a centrist channel and is the biggest news provider. By
taking us through these details, it is distancing itself from the
perpetrators and their defenders, who are mostly from the far right. The
channel also aired interviews and unhinged statements of the gang rape
suspects’ attorneys. One of the attorneys, Nati Rom, claims that the
Israeli soldiers were acting in self-defense, as if it wasn’t a
premeditated gang rape case at all:

“He [the Palestinian detainee] tries to bite two soldiers, he tries to
scratch another soldier, and when a taser is used on him he also resists,
and attacks and scratches this soldier, and that’s why they are forced to
use force in order to restrain him”.

Another attorney, Adi Kedar, complains that

“the military attorney office and military investigation unit are recruited
fully, in a targeted and intentional way with all their forces … We are in
a war — to invest all these resources for the sake of the rights of the
terrorist against these ten heroes who really acted above and beyond, and
against whom the suspicion is very very vague, it’s very disappointing,
both at the legal level, as well as the personal level, and I hope this
arrest will soon end.”

Channel 12 gave the lawyers airtime for their egregious statements without
comment — supposedly a neutral stance. As Tali Shapiro commented
<https://x.com/TalulaSha/status/1821111384681181679> on social media:
“According to Israeli media, what’s important in the rape case involving
military personnel is not so much the rape but rather how much of a Nukhba
the victim is.”

Then, on Wednesday, Channel 14, the far-right channel which aired several snuff
videos
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/we-are-the-masters-of-the-house-israeli-channels-air-snuff-videos-featuring-systematic-torture-of-palestinians/>
of these torture facilities earlier this year, featured a 10-minute
interview <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBG7K_3I9mc> with one of the
rape suspects on its program, “The Patriots.” He is sitting there in an
army uniform and a gun across his shoulder, with a black mask. The host
begins by stating that the masked suspect is charged under the case with
“the Nukhba terrorist, cursed be his name.” The suspect is complaining
about what he sees as a witch-hunt and congratulates the right wing for
rising up to protest it. He receives countless ovations. Asked about the
security camera footage and the soldiers holding up the shields like that,
he says this is just standard procedure. He chided Channel 12 and their
journalist, Guy Peleg, for slandering the soldiers in the other mentioned
report.

This is an unbelievable sight to behold — here
<https://www.instagram.com/p/C-cIRzcIbbp/> is a partially subtitled version
in *Middle East Eye*. And imagine, this guy is calling for law and order.
While hailing the right-wing protests of the arrest, he nonetheless urges
them not to “break into camps,” because it “hurts our good name.”

Another shocking development came the same day, during a Channel 12 morning
news discussion
<https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-XyD-4txBU/?igsh=eTY1YnFsMmdjczgx>.

The Channel 12 journalist and panelist Yehuda Shlezinger commented on the
gang rape case:

“It interests my anus what they did to this Hamas person…From my
perspective, the problem here is that it is not a regulated policy from the
state to abuse prisoners. First of all — they deserve it. Maybe it will
serve as deterrence.. It’s a worthy revenge, it’s just a pity that it’s not
done in an institutional manner.”

Later, Ynet published an article
<https://www.ynet.co.il/entertainment/article/sk0v8nzqr> with a title
suggesting that Shlezinger “apologized.” Here is his “apology”:

“It was a mistake to say those things in a live broadcast. I was wrong. We
need to get into them (sic), in the strongest possible manner, like I saw
the heroic soldiers do it in Khan Younis, Jabalia, and Rafah … The
terrorists need to be executed according to law. To let the state deal with
them, to remember and to remind what Amalek did to you.”

So, Shlezinger is now once again referring to the biblical Amalek story
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/netanyahu-invoked-another-genocidal-biblical-reference-in-his-response-to-the-icc/>,
suggesting total genocide down to babies and animals. This is his
“apology.” By the way, the systematic abuse of prisoners is already
established state policy — but not necessarily gang rape.

Channel 12 tried to distance itself from Shlezinger’s views expressed on
air. The production “regretted” the discussion and noted that it was said
to Shlezinger that those things should not have been said. The host, Niv
Raskin, said that he “distances himself from those sayings,” and that “it
would have been right to do so in the broadcast itself” (which he didn’t do
— the challenge to Shlezinger came from *Haaretz *journalist Josh Breiner).
Raskin notes that “Shlezinger expressed remorse over the sayings and issued
an apology.” But the “apology,” as we see, invokes genocide and is merely a
regret of having advocated for rape on air.

The broadcaster Keshet “unequivocally condemned the statements that were
said today on live broadcast,” asking the production “not to invite
Shlezinger to the morning program in the near future.”

A day later, on Thursday, *Middle East Eye*
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/raped-female-soldiers-palestinian-leaked-sde-teiman-photo-speaks-out>
released
another testimony of a male Palestinian prisoner who was subject to rape,
reporting on the systematic sexual abuse, but this time with an additional
angle — female teenage soldiers raping men. It must be noted that the whole
phenomenon of men testifying openly, with their name and on video, is
something that had not existed pre-October 7. The shame related to such
occurrences meant that, on the rare occasion where it was reported, it
would be anonymous. But now we have seen a series of such testimonies,
which demonstrates not only the systematic nature of the abuse but also the
fact that these men are now willing to put their privacy and personal
dignity aside to help change the reality for their brethren still
undergoing the abuse on a daily basis.

Ibrahim Salem, who was released last week after nearly eight months of
detention, told* Middle East Eye* of his torture and interrogation at Sde
Teiman (trigger warning):

“I noticed that [the soldier] was glueing something on me. Then I started
shaking. He was electrocuting me. He electrocuted me in sensitive spots and
hit me in these spots.”

The report continues:

“Though it was rampant, inmates rarely spoke about it to each other, he
said. It was embarrassing for many to admit, especially when they were
raped by female soldiers, who were sometimes in their teens. It was common
practice for soldiers to strip detainees naked, insert objects into their
rectum and grab their genitals aggressively when they changed. When word
got around that a prisoner in his 40s was raped, Salem kept getting close
to him until he told him what happened to him.

‘He told me he was raped by a female soldier,’ Salem told MEE. When he
asked him how it happened, the prisoner explained it would take place in
the presence of another soldier in the room. The prisoner would be bent
over a desk with his hands placed in front of him, handcuffed. The female
soldier, standing behind him, would insert her fingers and other objects
into his rectum.

Salem said he was also touched in his private parts by a female soldier and
had objects inserted in his rectum at some point.”

------------------------------

Last week began with the Israeli human rights NGO B’tselem releasing a new
report on Monday titled “Welcome to Hell – The Israeli Prison System as a
Network of Torture Camps
<https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20240805_welcome_to_hell>,” which
makes the point that Sde Teiman is “only the tip of the iceberg.” So
everything above is not exceptional. It’s the product of a system.

And this is partly why this one story of gang rape is making the headlines
in Israel, although for various and opposing reasons. The right wing wants
the story to be justified and to go away so that soldiers can continue
abusing Palestinian detainees with impunity. The center and left mostly
want it prosecuted so that it can be chalked up to a few “bad apples.” This
was the case with the murder case of Elor Azarya
<https://mondoweiss.net/2018/05/returns-welcome-palestinian/> in 2016 —
where the medic-soldier shot an already incapacitated Palestinian suspect
in the head at point-blank range. Azarya was also caught on video. Although
what he did happened “tons of times,” according to his comrades, he was to
serve as the “bad apple,” which in turn would prove the innocence of the
system. Azarya’s trial was a sham, and he eventually returned home to a
hero’s welcome after a nine-month prison term. This is roughly what we
should expect here. The Israeli center needs to differentiate between the
murdering Zionist, the gang-raping Zionist, and the liberal Zionist.

But the rot is way too overwhelming. It won’t help to close down Sde
Teiman. This story is about the systemic usage of sexual violence as a
weapon of genocide. And Sde Teiman is just a reflection of Israeli society,
a cog in a network of torture that reflects and replicates an overall rape
culture.
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