Everyone from Netanyahu's son, Yair, to Israel's Economy Minister Nir Barkat, to Justice Minister Yariv Levin, has chimed in to defend the right of soldiers to rape Palestinian prisoners. What was intended as a legal charade to demonstrate to the ICC that Israel could hold its soldiers accountable for crimes – in this case, the gang rape of a prisoner at the Sde Teiman concentration camp – has backfired and exposed the psychological sickness emanating from the heart of Jewish Israeli society.
The sadistic torture that has taken place at Sde Teiman and other Israeli dungeons was undeniably fueled by the state-led propaganda hoax accusing Hamas of "systemic sexual violence" on October 7. Legacy Western outlets like the NY Times, BBC, The Guardian, along with the voice of Israel's "enlightened public," Haaretz, legitimized the hoax, and have refused to retract or even correct reports that were comprehensively debunked. Thus, to the common Jewish Israeli, Hamas militants not only violated hundreds of women before butchering them for pleasure, they cruelly emasculated the Israeli male who supposedly conquered the land.
Behind the walls of Sde Teiman, the shadowy goon squad known as Force 100 has been tasked with restoring Zionist machismo by revenge-raping defenseless Palestinian men kidnapped from Gaza. All prisoners are "terrorists" in their minds, therefore anything is permissible. As Hanoch Milwidsky, a member of Knesset from the ruling Likud Party stated openly in a parliamentary debate, "If he is a [Hamas] Nukhba member, everything is legitimate to do him!"
The same media outlets that propagated the Hamas "mass rape" hoax are predictably downplaying the documented gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner. Haaretz has referred to the rape in a front page headline as mere "abuse." Currently, there is nothing on the NY Times front page about the incident, while the Washington Post refers cryptically to "detainee abuse" in its coverage, which is buried at the bottom of its website. Prominent liberal Zionists, meanwhile, are pronouncing Israel's "democracy" and its international image as the ultimate victims of the crisis, and not the Palestinians who have endured rape and torture at the hands of the occupation's enforcers.
The war in Gaza suffocated the national protests against Netanyahu's judicial reform plans, seemingly breathing new life into the PM's career. But now, after nine months of blood-letting, the war is setting the stage for an existential civil meltdown if and when Netanyahu agrees to a ceasefire without scoring the "total victory" he's promised. If that day comes, let it be recorded that the turning point was a violent Zionist riot in support of the right to rape Palestinian men.
Mike