RAPE TO THE POINT OF DEATH is standard procedure in Israel, particularly in the Israeli Guantanamo, Sde Teiman. This crime against humanity has been revealed in a most alarming, shocking fashion, as Israelis have rioted to protest the imprisonment of soldiers accused of rape. The rioters are cheering on and standing behind the use of rape as a tool of war. And this is among Israel’s panoply of crimes against humanity, which the US Congress, to its everlasting shame and to the shame of all Americans, applauded when it applauded and gave frequent standing ovations to Benjamin Netanyahu, a criminal who should have been arrested immediately when he touched down on American soil.
When polled to investigate the extent of their approval of rape as an instrument of war, Israelis responded with a resounding “Yes!” in FAVOR of raping Palestinian men, women, and children. And after all, several Israeli leaders including Yoav Gallant have called the Palestinians “human animals” and/or called Hamas the same, and/or said that all of Gaza supports Hamas. See Netanyahu statement that Gaza is a “city of evil” here. The soldiers arrested for rape are responding with astonishment: You told us these people are subhuman, so why are you punishing us? The policy that rape is a weapon of war goes back to 1948. Israel is rotten to the core. It has always been rotten to the core. But now, as the Netanyahu regime has institutionalized, with fulsome Biden administration military and financial aid, genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, the disclosure of the massive, widespread crime of rape as a weapon of war, shows that Israel has forfeited its right to exist. It should be banned from the pale of civilized nations. It is a testimony to mass barbarism.
Listen to Naomi Klein’s interview with Rula Jebreal, a Palestinian journalist whose mother was raped and committed suicide as a result. Naomi Klein correctly judges that this lugubrious phenomenon is of a piece with Israeli bombing of hospitals, Jebreal says the rioters were demonstrating for their RIGHT to commit these heinous crimes.
Israel should be judged as a criminal, pariah state guilty of genocide and crimes of almost unspeakable atrocity, and the UN has done this. Israel’s descent into is the result of decades of abuse and indoctrination. Israel has become fascist to its roots, and its fascism includes almost all of its population.
Naomi Klein observes that international law cannot withstand this infliction of violation. Here we are in the United States with a Vice President declaring that she has prosecuted sexual predators, says Klein. But “where is Kamala Harris in the face of… collapsing international law?” Obama came into office with his “hope” and “change” policy, but what did he do? He didn’t close Guantanamo. Torture continued. Will Harris continue in his footsteps? America “always wants to reboot and don’t look back.” And, she concludes, “You can’t keep off these reckonings forever.” Let us hope.