The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has published a major new report documenting how the Israeli prison system has become “a network of torture camps,” where physical, psychological and sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners is normalized and routine.
The report, titled “Welcome to Hell,” collects the testimony of 55 Palestinians who were detained by Israeli authorities since October 7 and later released, almost all without charges. This comes as a group of U.N. experts condemned the widespread torture of Palestinians and as Israel’s Channel 12 News aired shocking footage of Israeli soldiers sexually abusing a prisoner at the Sde Teiman army base, where thousands of detainees from Gaza are held.
Sarit Michaeli, the international advocacy lead for B’Tselem, says the abuse in Israeli prisons is “systemic, ongoing and state-sanctioned,” reflecting the cruelty and thirst for revenge among a growing number of Israelis. “They would like to have a completely open field in terms of what they can do to Palestinians,” says Michaeli.
You can find the full report of testimonies here
Meanwhile, we’ve got “stop being antisemitic” trolls casting doubt among the uninformed.
Not only that. There are whole countries participating in that disgusting shit. UK and US stayed absent from the Nagasaki memorial event because Japan had the good sense of not inviting an apartheid dictatorship.
Japan certainly has some ugly issues with racism. Many countries do. But comparing that with the treatment of Palestine is absolutely deluded.
I find it more bizarre that most of the world leaders are turning a blind eye to it all and keep the bullshit up with “right to defend themselves”.
Nothing of this has anything to do with defending.
Since october 7th, the US has sent Israel 39 F-35s, the most advanced aircraft in the world. This brings Israels count of F-35s (again, the most advanced aircraft in the world) to 50. Meanwhile, Ukraine has been begging us for F-16s, an outdated aircraft that the US Military has relegated to National Guard service and plans to retire in 2025. The Netherlands and Denmark have been who has donated all of the F-16s Ukraine is receiving.
I want to point out, literal days after Ukraine received the F-16s, they launched a counter invasion and captured Kursk. This is something that could have been much more impactful back when Ukraine started asking for the F-16s (which I want to make sure everyone remembers is a fighter platform from the 1970s that we are retiring in a few months). I don’t even know… What I want people to do with this information. I just want people to sit with it and draw their own conclusions about America’s priorities, and what it means to ask for and receive aid from the US.
Also, the US has been regularlu conditioning its weapons supplies to Ukraine on them not being used in Russia proper; while calls to put any conditions on Israel’s usage of them have been a complete non-starter.
If your country doesn’t have shitloads of money and/or oil, the United States doesn’t give a shit. They only help when they have something to gain.
If we don’t get Israel under control we’re going to have to bomb those F-35s to keep them from going to the Russians. It’s insane to me that we even sold them to a conflict country. Especially one we’re constantly worried is going to start a war with Iran. We sold stealth bombers to the country that constantly threatens to bomb Iran and draw us all into world war 3.
Will somebody please put the adults in control of our weapons sales?
I want to point out, literal days after Ukraine received the F-16s, they launched a counter invasion and captured Kursk.
Woah, woah, stop right here. They’ve captured a few villages in the direction of Kursk. They didn’t capture Kursk. I dunno if you are getting the scale of your claims here, but look at the map first
I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy nut, but I am very disturbed at AIPAC and similar organizations spending millions in local primaries to unseat candidates that are vocally pro Palestine. Cori Bush and others in the “squad” dare to speak against them and are actively being replaced by big money.
Do you want to make terrorists? Because this is how you make desperate people feel like their only option is to become terrorists.
This is what Westerners love to say, but from the Israeli (or, say, Azeri and Turkish) viewpoint they’ve already outraged all the potential “terrorists” long ago and there’s nobody else who can oppose them but doesn’t do that yet. That is, they feel impunity. And they are right if a Westerner reading this says something like
Do you want to make terrorists? Because this is how you make desperate people feel like their only option is to become terrorists.
, not even bothering to send something poisonous in an envelope to an Israeli embassy, even such a little action.
My lord. Listening to those testimonies.
This is horrible. Evil. The Palestinian people deserve so much better than this.
The page with the full report: https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/welcome-hell-israeli-prison-system-network-torture-camps-enarhe
Every time I think Israel can’t do worse… it gets worse.
Israel went to great lengths to remind people of the Holocaust and caution against Antisemitism but looks like they forgot themselves.
Anyone who is against RAPE is ANTISEMITIC!
It’s interesting how in an attempt to rebuke claims that being against Israel is antisemitic, we have now escalated to mocking the idea of Antisemitism as a whole every time there’s disturbing news about Israel…
I am not a fan of this trend. Antisemitism still exists, and nowhere am I finding any indication that anyone is earnestly making the argument that Israel has the right to rape prisoners.
So what is the point of this comment, other than to preemptively normalize antisemitism as an acceptable response to Israeli human rights abuses?
EDIT: You’ll downvote this, but you’ll upvote the “guess I’m antisemitic” comment, don’t act like you don’t see the creeping normalization. No fucking different than right-wingers “I guess x is racist, so I’m a racist now” narratives. I know you think you’re joking, but when people tell me who they are, it’s still prescient to believe them.
we have now escalated to mocking the idea of Antisemitism as a whole
That is the reality if the Israeli government keeps pretending that all their human rights violations are in the name of Jews everywhere. You can’t hold on to being the victim if you are the one abusing now.
nowhere am I finding any indication that anyone is earnestly making the argument that Israel has the right to rape prisoners.
It literally happened a little over a week ago.
Paragraphs 5-7. I recall there being a video of the moment but I don’t know if it is included in the linked article.
A member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, speaking Monday at a meeting of lawmakers, justified the rape and abuse of Palestinian prisoners, shouting angrily at colleagues questioning the alleged behavior that anything was legitimate to do to “terrorists” in custody.
Lawmaker Hanoch Milwidsky was asked as he defended the alleged abuse whether it was legitimate, “to insert a stick into a person’s rectum?”
“Yes!” he shouted in reply to his fellow parliamentarian. “If he is a Nukhba [Hamas militant], everything is legitimate to do! Everything!”
…
nowhere am I finding any indication that anyone is earnestly making the argument that Israel has the right to rape prisoners.
An Israeli lawmaker was asked if anal rape with a stick was legitimate and the Israeli lawmaker replied “Yes” and clarified that “Everything is legitimate to do” so long as the recipient is Hamas. Is he in the majority? No, but someone is earnestly making the argument.
Here’s the thing. The fact that I’m making the effort to demonstrate this utterly fucked up reality is, I guarantee, going to convince someone here that I’m antisemitic. I don’t think it will matter to them that I have family that is Jewish or that I’m 50% Ashkenazi by blood.
The fact that this is happening, and that any Israeli lawmaker would defend it, literally makes Jews worldwide less safe. It gives real, actual antisemitism more perceived legitimacy.
Edit: Video Link. Couldn’t find anything outside twitter/insta/tiktok, none of which I ever visit directly. Kind if telling that American news outlets don’t have it posted anywhere I could easily find but whatever. While I’ve had folks attest to the accuracy of the translation, I don’t speak Hebrew so feel free to continue to pretend it isn’t happening.
