Israel debates the right to rape
Israel debates the right to rape
I don't like writing it any more than you like reading it.
A different prison
In 2015 a group of Australian students sat in the musty headquarters of the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) in downtown Amman. Obligatory tea and cold white tiles broke the spell of the clinging heat. It’s a modestly staffed outfit and one that navigates restraints unheard of in Australia. Jordanian journalists learn early to avoid the vagaries of the country’s two largest institutions: the monarchy and the army. They self-censor, allude, and eke out truth within a bandwidth that allows them to stay in business. Pretensions to objectivity do not hold much currency there. After tea was served our hosts brought in three survivors of Bashar al-Assad’s prisons. By then the Syrian Civil War was in its chaotic fifth year. The regime was losing ground to a fraying patchwork of rebel groups, local militias, and Islamists columns. There was heavy fighting in the hills just north of Damascus. From this vantage point we know that in September of that year the Russian air force would intervene forcefully on behalf of its client state. But then, in June, there was a quiet and bitter hope that the war would end. One million Syrians had crossed the desert border and languished in Jordanian refugee camps — each carrying a personal horror.
Of the three ex-prisoners, just one spoke, the others nodded quietly. None had been particularly political before the conflict erupted; all had been sucked into the teeming prisons of the mukhabarat. The description of their treatment will never leave me. Frequent and random beatings at the hands and boots of guards. They were electrocuted, sliced open with razors, and burnt with cigarettes. The finer details of torture were relayed matter-of-fact; minor details compared to the horror of confinement. Assad’s prisons were overflowing with anyone who had even the most tenuous social or familial link to protesters or defectors. Hundreds were crammed into cells designed for dozens. There was not enough room to stand or lie and so prisoners arranged themselves in tight seated rows, legs forming a V, leaning against the chest of the man behind you as another’s back pressed into you. It is how we hold a loved one, or our young. There were no toilets, no showers and diseases cut through this underfed and bloodied mass. Guards visited infrequently to remove the dead; one would be left cradling the body of the man in front days after they had expired. The lucky ones got out. The unlucky disappeared into the black hole of the Air Force Intelligence Directorate or the slaughterhouse at Saydnaya. All of this came back to me this week upon hearing about the conditions in the concentration camps of Australia’s number one ally in the Middle East.
The camp at Sde Teiman
Since October 7 buses have been arriving at the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) base at Sde Teiman. Prisoners, bound and hooded, were unloaded and shepherded inside the processing facility in the Negev. To retrofit a military installation as a high security prison is a significant undertaking. There is only so much that can be done to turn an aircraft hanger into a carceral setting — the necessity of time placed the restraints onto the individual. It is a logic that has been revealed as a monstrosity of our age. The images coming out of Sde Teiman are horrific. Rows of Palestinians lying prostrate on gurneys: cuffed, blindfolded, and fed through straws. They are kept in total deprivation by their captors, a unit of reservists named Force 100. These prisoners don’t know where they are; there is no right to access lawyers. Before Ibrahim Salem was released back into Jabalia refugee camp he was entrusted to remember the names and towns of as many of those inside Sde Teiman. He is wandering Gaza now with a careworn notepad containing names searching for families. A lonely task in a war zone, delivering the tiniest solace — I clasped eyes on your relative and he was, at least then, alive" — to families that may not exist anymore.
Israeli whistleblowers have made reference to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay. Such comparisons are insufficient. We know that multiple Palestinians have had their hands amputated after constant restraint cut off blood-flow to their extremities. Imagine that: shackled, blind, feeling your fingers slowly die. We know this because it has been reported at length in the international press since May. Before that the allegations emerged from human rights groups in Israel — organisations that have a tenuous grip on the imagination of the broader public there. One story that did not make its way into the international news was that of Fady Baker. His treatment in IDF custody can be gleaned from his poorly fused bones, torn skin, ruptured ear drums, and haunted dreams. He was electrocuted and beaten. Attack dogs were set on him. He was subjected regularly to the “disco room” in whihc prisoners were stripped naked and subjected to music played at ear-splitting volume through headphones. In one particularly gruelling incident he was forced to lie beside a decomposing body. He witnessed guards anally raping detainees with shock rods. When his own condition worsened Fady was operated on without anaesthesia. He is not a fighter — Fady is a human rights advocate with no affiliation to Hamas. His punishment isn’t weighed against crimes; it is revenge.
Such stories were treated with scepticism. Now they are handled with solemnity. Last month rumours began circulating about a vicious incident in Sde Teiman. A Palestinian was gang-raped by nine soldiers with the barrels of assault rifles and shock rods. He was left with a badly lacerated anus, ruptured bowels, and broken ribs. The victim was taken to the military hospital where the extent of his injuries roused the interest of doctors. Professor Yoel Donchin treated the patient but could not believe the damage wrought to his flesh. He leaked the story to Haaretz and had this to say, “If the state and Knesset members think there's no limit to how much you can abuse prisoners, they should kill them themselves, like the Nazis did, or close the hospitals. If they maintain a hospital only for the sake of defending ourselves at the Hague, that's no good." Consider the bravery it would take, in such a caustic political environment, to call a spade a spade.
The right to rape
Even amid the backdrop of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, intensifying apartheid in the West Bank, and regional provocation; there are some stories cannot be ignored. Nine IDF reservists had gang-raped a prisoner so violently that it nearly killed him. Extraordinarily, one of the accused is a Major. This isn’t a breakdown in discipline; humiliation and torture is the core function of Force 100. The judiciary got wind of it, as did international aid groups and journalists. Here was concrete evidence of exactly what the International Court of Justice alleged in its July advisory opinion. Palestinians live under the yoke of Israeli military law: the wheels of martial justice turn quickly and rarely in the right direction. The Military Advocate General, Brig. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, was goaded into action. The accused would have to be brought in.
Military police raided Sde Teiman on Monday and made their arrests. Though they were not the only unwelcome visitors to the concentration camp that day. Hundreds of protesters attacked the military facility — pulling down outer fences and threatening the main gate. It was a volatile crowd and they were there for one reason: to defend the soldiers’ right to rape prisoners. Gathered were a mixed bag of armed hilltop settler youths, off-duty soldiers, religious conservatives, Netanyahu supporters, armed paramilitary groups, and members of the Knesset. And not just MKs from fascist parties like Otzma Yehudit (‘Jewish Power’). Likudniks. Cabinet ministers. The leaders of the state of Israel. Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu instructed the crowd to defend the “rights” of reservists. The paramilitary groups are criminal organisations at the bleeding edge of ethnic cleansing. While undisciplined settlers ransack and burn Palestinians out of the West Bank it is these heavily armed groups preparing for war. When Israel fulfils its dream of annexing the West Bank in total you can bet that these groups will be providing plausible deniability for the IDF. Likud MK Tally Gotliv gave a speech flanked by militiamen in balaclavas.
The language passed from incendiary to mutinous. One ex-IDF officer, Eliyahu Yosian, gave a halting speech that is worth quoting at length.
What percentage of your compound are reserve soldiers? Nearly everyone inside the compound are reservists. Prior to October 7, lots of villains and treif people [anti-Netanyahu protesters] called this “not volunteering for reserve duty.” They said it was not a mutiny, right? Right? You’re holding people called Nukhba [Hamas commandos]. These Nukhba raped Jewish women on October 7th. Did it matter if they were traditional, secular, or religious? No. They slaughtered, beheaded, burned, destroyed everything, just for the reason that we’re Jews. It’s that simple. Your fellow reservists have been arrested even though for nine months you’ve enlisted, defending the homeland. You left your wives, kids, families, and parents behind and come to serve the state. True or not? Your friends have been taken in for interrogation, in favour of the people who raped our women, beheaded and slaughtered. True or not? You must not abandon your friends.
The foreign press describes views like these as far-right. Liberalism at its doctrinaire worst. It has been said many times before by people much cleverer than me: there is no such thing as a far-right in Israel. Zionism is underpinned by racism and violence; there are those who exhibit that and those who tolerate it. Yosian puts paid to the myth that there is some civic core that resists the worst impulses of the populace. After a career in IDF Intelligence he joined the Misgav Institute of Zionist Strategy, a think-tank used to send up trial balloons for future policy (recently, a position paper on how to depopulate Gaza entirely). Knesset members sit on its board. And here he is exhorting armed militias to insurrection against the last vestiges of normalcy in the system: the judiciary. Extraordinarily, when Yosian mentioned the State Attorney and the High Court of Justice, the crowd responded with chants, “Kapo! Kapo! Nazis!” The call is coming from inside the house.
The nine reservists were whisked out of the Sde Teiman to another base at Beit Lid — the headquarters of the military court system. But the pro-rape activists were not to be denied — they had the full approval of senior government ministers. A second military installation was swarmed by rabid protesters trying to break the accused rapists out of custody. The situation at Beit Lid was so concerning that brass rotated units out of the Gaza envelope to secure the base. Images of screeching, abrasive crowds inside the court complex are truly something to behold. Uniformed reservists pushing back a rampaging mob full of uniformed reservists. Police making themselves as scarce as possible. A total breakdown in cohesion and hierarchy. Prison gates prised open, the military being deployed, all to reiterate a message: we’ll put our lives on the line to ensure our soldiers can rape whoever they please.
The question, and it is a real question in Israel, is whether it is acceptable to anally rape prisoners. The answer, as revealed in word and deed, is yes. While an insurrection grew at Biet Lid the Likud MK Hanoch Milvetsky was in the Knesset Finance Committee. He left the meeting in support and implored his coalition partners to do so. Joint List MK Hadash Ta’al challenged him, asking “Is inserting an explosive into the rectum of a person legitimate?” Milvetsky fired back, “If he is a Nukhba, everything is legitimate.” Again, not an extreme position, one that is if not codified, at least protected in case law by the judicial system itself. If it is done against a Palestinian, it can’t be torture. This from the World Organisation Against Torture:
In the 20 years that have passed, the Supreme Court has upheld the legalised torture system it had created against all challenges by PCATI (Public Committee Against Torture in Israel). Not a single one of over 1,000 complaints has led to even one criminal investigation to be opened against an ISA interrogator, let alone a trial, conviction or punishment. ISA (Israel Security Agency) interrogators have continued to torture, safe in the knowledge that they enjoy total impunity, thanks in no small measure to the Supreme Court. However, until very recently its Justices were careful, like they were in the 1999 ruling itself, to avoid referring to ISA interrogation techniques as “torture.” When pressed by PCATI, the Court did an impressive amount of linguistic, logical and legal acrobatics to avoid any categorising of ISA’s interrogation methods.
This week MKs argued whether or not inserting an object into the anus of a detainee meets the definition of torture. My government, and yours, backs this country to the hilt. I look forward to seeing how deeply Penny Wong furrows her brow while ignoring words like gang-rape. Every second that the Israeli ambassador remains welcome in this country, and that the Australian ambassador remains in Israel, is an endorsement of this madness.
Ubermensch don’t do podcasts
I love Peter Thiel. He’s the ex-PayPal tech billionaire who finances some of the grottiest corner of the online right. In recent years Thiel has funnelling pumping cash into top-line Senate races and he’s about as good at backing winners as I am at doing multis (still waiting on a Jack Scrimshaw 35+ possession game). Blake Master was a world-historic loser in Arizona last cycle and got towelled up in the primary this time. JD Vance got dragged over the line in the midterms, underperforming significantly in Ohio, and is now looking like ballot box poison. Working in Thiel’s favour is a sizeable fortune so he can continue picking lemons forever. Thankfully for us, our man does not have the discipline to stay in the background influencing (or not influencing) events. He is on a whistle-stop tour of the funniest right-wing podcasts in America right now. The video above comes from the show TRIGGERnometry which is hosted by “comedians” Francis Forster (part Louis Theroux, part Louis Theroux interviewee) and Konstanin Kisin (presumably on some kind of list maintained by the Metropolitan Police). They capitalise the wordplay in their podcast title which is an implicit admission of the age, gender, and reading level of their audience (14 years old, male, one-panel chad wojak meme). Thiel has been grappling with Big Ideas and used the podcast to expound them.
Christianity, the main religion of the Western world, it always takes the side of the victim. And there’s something where it is like some kind of deformation of intensification. And maybe you should think of wokeness as ultra-Christianity of hyper-Christianity. It’s just like an extreme intensification, and there’s no forgiveness. You still have original sin, and you have all these bad things that happened in the past. The past is terrible, and you can never overcome it. But surely there is a religious interpretation of this. What happened is, let’s say the church lost a certain amount of authority, but people didn’t become rationalist, atheist people. They went into this sort of woke religion, which I would interpret as a extreme form of Christianity.
Okay, which one of you bozos gave him a copy of Beyond Good and Evil for Christmas? It’s never not troubling to see an adult get their hands on the reading list for Nietzschean Ethics 101. The mustachioed mensch placed significant value on aesthetics so lets start there. Brother, why are you so sweaty? Why is someone worth $7.6bn wearing ASICS? Don’t you know that Demosthenes took the pebbles out to give speeches? This stammering, glistening wreck can’t even muster half-assed contrarianism. Woke is Christianity? Holy shit, dude — these takes are going to completely scandalise the God-fearing town-folk in 19th century Bavaria. Thiel is harking back to an era of rugged individualism and masc verve while exhibiting all the behaviours of a straw-drinking sooky la la. You named your company after Lord of the Rings lore! If it wasn’t for the slave morality of Christendom this invertebrate would’ve been atomic wedgied out of existence. We deserve a better quality Bad Guy. Say what you will about Erik Prince and his combover; at least the man would pop on desert camo and Oakley’s to zoom around the Kabul Green Zone occasionally.
A quote
“The only crime that I have committed is in judgement of my values. Apparently, I valued my troops’ lives more than I did that of the enemy.”
— Lt. William Calley of My Lai infamy died this week.
A number
2,744%+ acres burned
— California has seen 4,574 fires this year, scorching 726,667 acres of land. A 2,700% increase on the same period last year.
A headline
‘Soup Dumpling Index: How prices compare around the world’
— Axios compares how many Xiao long bao $10 will get you at Din Tai Fung outlets across the globe. An uncommon W for that publication.
Further consumption
The New Yorker quits Spotify
Yet another hitter from Inside Story
404Media gets free laundry for life
Ciao for now,
Tom