Abuse by Israeli soldiers

No, it's not to do with the right obstructing investigations, although that's part of the overall story. It's the (now former) chief military prosecutor herself, Tomer-Yerushalmi, who is accused of the obstruction of justice.

It's a long and complicated story, but basically: after the abuse happened, indictments were filed against the five soldiers concerned. At the time, the reported abuse was a big incident in the Israeli news; their prosecution is ongoing, but this is not in itself what the current news story is about.

Normally the case would just continue from there in the military justice system. But what happened next was completely unprecedented: far right protestors, including members of Knesset, protested violently against the arrests of the soldiers, and some of them, including a government minister from a far right party in Netanyahu's coalition, broke into military bases as part of their protests and some claimed parliamentary immunity and refused to turn up for questioning. This was seen by most Israelis as a very serious incident undermining the justice system (in the context of a government which has devoted much of its effort to undermining various parts of the justice system). An investigation into this incident is also ongoing, but it's also not what this story is about.

Here begins the current story. At this point, Tomer-Yerushalmi decided to release the video; her explanation in her resignation was that she did so in order to protect the justice system. For whatever reason, she decided to do so by leaking the video to a journalist on Israel's main news channel, rather than using other open channels that were available to her.

And now we get to the current affair: there was an investigation into the leak of the video. Her office declined an outside investigation and conducted an internal investigation, which concluded that it was not possible to find the source of the leak. However, during the last weeks, the source of the leak was discovered to be Tomer-Yerushalmai, and it appears that those in her office doing the investigation knew who was responsible and attempted to cover it up. The cover up included a false affidavit to the Supreme Court, and the mysterious "loss" during the last few weeks of the smartphones of all those involved in the coverup. The former military chief justice herself briefly disappeared and was found after what is suspected to be a staged suicide attempt during which her smartphone also mysteriously disappeared.

It's a strange story; people on the left tend to think she acted for the right reasons but in the wrong way, and ultimately this case is very damaging, both for the credibility of the military justice system, and in allowing the government another opportunity to destroy the credibility of the justice system.

Overall, complicated case but the BBC story doesn't get close to explaining why this case from over a year ago suddenly made headlines during the past week.

Yeah, the reports are quite triggering as is the video. That was part of what made the incident so shocking to most of the world. This is not meant to denigrate Israelis as some of the most vocal people against it were Israelis who translated reports and interviews to English from Hebrew.

The attempts to smear the victim as a Nukbha fighter (as repeated by Katz) in some weird attempt to justify the rape as some sort of vengeance speaks to the depravity of certain systems of authority who instead of holding the perpetrators to account are excusing it.

During the Iraq war there was an American atrocity that took place during the Iraq war. Where an American soldier raped, killed and set on fire a 14 year Iraqi girl Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi after killing her Parents and younger sibling.
His fellow soldiers covered for him:

• The soldiers involved initially tried to cover up the crime by setting the victim's body on fire and telling Iraqi soldiers arriving on the scene that Sunni insurgents were responsible for the massacre. U.S. investigators initially accepted this false report and did not investigate further.

-The truth came to light after an unidentified soldier, reportedly motivated by guilt, disclosed details of the crime.
Other soldiers later came forward, stating they had overheard the group planning the attack or saw them return with bloodstained clothing.

-One of the accomplices, James Barker, provided a written statement detailing the events, including Green's role as the ringleader who had repeatedly expressed a desire to kill Iraqis.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/steven-green-trial-goes-t_b_197573

What am I missing about obstruction of justice? I thought the BBC article made clear that the right was keen to obstruct investigation? Is there more to this than that? Is legal process not being followed? Where can I read about this?

@stomachamelon please see below a previous post of mine

”, any criticism I have made on here is regarding the actions of the Israeli government not the entirety of Israeli society, I know there are many Israeli organisations such as B”tselem who have been campaigning against and documenting the abuse of Palestinians for decades.”

why not simply condemn the rape rather than attempt to deflect criticism? I would condemn the treatment of that hostage

I mean, that report does represent that public opinion is broad in Israel, but it also totally misrepresents the story. I live in Israel and I read the mainstream Hebrew news multiple times a day. First of all, this isn't a massive "lightning rod". Honestly for most people, it's just a pretty strange developing news story where different details keep emerging.

But the real issue here in the mainstream news is the obstruction of justice, which is totally missing from the BBC report. The reason this is so much in the news isn't because of the leak itself - it's because what appears to have been a conspiracy to conceal who was responsible for the leak, including multiple officials "losing" their phones, has come to light.

I very frequently just find Israeli reporting lazy. No wonder there's so much attention given to Ben Gvir etc - because they make good news stories. But their representation of mainstream Israeli opinion often seems to completely lack any contact with normal people on the ground or reading of the mainstream (Hebrew) news here.

Some slightly more balanced reporting on this and your daily reminder that many in Israel are shocked and appalled by this atrocious incident.

Israeli society isn't the one large homogeneous evil baddie you frequently paint it to be on here.

Excerpt from BBC, full link below.

"The Sde Teiman incident has been a lightning rod for the division between the left and right in Israel.

On the right, the leaking of the video is denounced as a defamation of the Israeli military, all but amounting to an act of treason.

After Israeli military police went to Sde Teiman to question 11 reservists over the incident in July 2024, far-right protesters - including at least three lawmakers from Netanyahu's governing coalition - broke into the facility to show their support.

On the left, Gen Tomer-Yerushalmi's decision to enable the footage to be released is seen as the one time she lived up to the responsibilities of her post.

The video is regarded by the left as concrete evidence backing up multiple reports of abuse of Palestinian detainees since the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel."

Lets hope those responsible for this heinous act receive a fair trial and are held accountable, and further that the extremists who currently hold too much sway over Israel will soon not hold that sway anymore.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0kpd97qqko

I imagine not what you’re looking for though.

@Everexpandingthat’s hardly an unbiased report is it? Neither is the ‘first lawyer to visit the facility’ - ‘it’s more horrific than anything we’ve heard’…. Is it? Says who?

The ‘response’ by a ‘proportion’- what proportion? Hyperbolic rubbish as you know. A ‘proportion’ were also rightly horrified and protested. Don’t want to post repeatedly about that proportion though do you?

I had not read the full details of the assault @BelleHathor that is absolutely horrific, actually makes me feel physically ill, that poor man, the comments by Israeli politicians are even more shocking since they know the details. I wonder did the poster on here who expressed that they were ok with the sexual torture of Palestinians know ?

”Prime Minister Benjamin Netantahu did not miss the opportunity to dramatize the matter, portraying the whole case as an attack on the nation: “This is perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the state of Israel has experienced since its establishment,” he railed.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called the case a “blood libel,” promising that “all required sanctions” would be taken against Tomer-Yerushalmi, including stripping her of her rank.
“Anyone who falsely spreads blood libels against IDF soldiers and prefers the welfare of the Nukhba terrorists over theirs is not worthy of wearing the IDF uniform and belongs in prison,” the Defense Minister said.

Although, as the Times of Israel and other news sources clarified, the Palestinian detainee who was raped by the reservists in Sde Teiman was a civilian and not a Hamas fighter.

Exactly, it's not to excuse British/American crimes during war, of which there have been plenty (including rape). Assange and other whistle-blowers exposed these crimes and there was rightly an outcry from local populations.

These soldiers at Sde Teiman:
"took turns to rape (a stick, a phone, a fire extinguisher) their victim on camera until they exploded his intestines & raptured his rectum. Ministers, MPs, religious leaders… all praised the rapists. National TVs hosted the rapists."

The victim : "underwent 20 surgical operations, inc. colostomy & urostomy, & is still suffering medical complications until now"

Also this 972 article is interesting regarding comparisons

“The situation there is more horrific than anything we’ve heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.” This is how Khaled Mahajneh describes the Sde Teiman detention center as the first lawyer to visit the facility. More than 4,000 Palestinians whom Israel arrested in Gaza have been held at the military base in the Naqab/Negev since October 7; some of them have subsequently been released, but most remain in Israeli detention.”

https://www.972mag.com/sde-teiman-prisoners-lawyer-mahajneh/

The most disturbing thing about this particular Sde Teiman incident was the response of a proportion of the Israeli population to it, which demonstrated a level of depravity I had not witnessed before

A riot for impunity shows Israel’s proud embrace of its crimes
Far-right protesters, soldiers, and MKs rallied for guards suspected of raping a Palestinian detainee. Once fringe, they’re now the public face of the state.

https://www.972mag.com/sde-teiman-beit-lid-protests-detainees/

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/8/1/israelgazapalestinianprisonerstorture

I understand what you’re saying - there was a reason why Guantanamo bay was required and yes it was to circumvent US laws. That’s why it couldn’t have happened on US soil!

I didn’t say things don’t happen in our prisons - but show me something comparable.

Isn't the land supposed to be sacred? Why do they seem to have such hate towards Olive trees? Olives are sacred, yet they are constantly hacking down olive trees and burning the land.

Why does Israel not do anything to tackle the home grown settler terrorists in their own backyard? Instead, go out of their way to arm and enable their terrorism.

I know about Ben Gvir and the coalition. I'm asking how Israel can call themselves a 'democracy' when the state is actively involved in terrorising innocent Palestinians? The settlers movement supported by the IDF and the government of Israel, deligitimises any notion of the myth that Israel likes to call themselves; 'the only democracy in the middle east'.

@Stripes56i don’t think you understand what I am saying. The fact the US made sure Guantanamo Bay wasn’t on US soil pretty much tells you they wanted to circumvent human rights from the get go. A planned route around it. Things do happen with the US and UK military routinely as it does with prison (let’s not imagine we know everything that happens)

I am not trying in any way to minimise the severity of this abuse. The perpetrators should be punished to the full extent of the law - and rightly they have been charged with serious crimes.

However, I find the glib assertions of "it wouldn't happen here" problematic. It's nice that you have such confidence in the way your soldiers treat prisoners - confidence that is not borne out by reality of what has happened in recent conflicts in which UK/US soldiers were involved.

Sde Teiman, where this case of abuse (and other incidents) happened, is not a regular Israeli prison run by the prison service. It's a military detention facility, like Basra or Abu Ghraib. It was closed in 2006, but was reopened in 2023 because the prison service had no way to cope with the hundreds of high-security prisoners, including hundreds of fighters from Hamas's elite Nukhba unit who led the Oct 7 atrocities, who were picked up by Israeli forces during the early days of the war. It was staffed by reserve soldiers from a counterterrorism unit who in the past had dealt with high security prisoners, and by others who, because of the circumstances, had received rudimentary training only. As you might imagine, when there is general conscription, the people who go to those roles are generally not quiet philosophical kids from middle-class homes. They are also not dealing with criminals whose crimes affected someone they don't know: they are dealing with prisoners many of whom (including the prisoner who was abused) were active members of a terror organisation that committed appalling attacks just down the road from the facility, and whose organisation was almost certainly responsible for the death of people they knew personally.

None of this is to excuse the crimes nor the structures which enabled them. It's just to say: don't be so sure it wouldn't happen in your back yard, because all the evidence from military detention by British and US troops suggests the opposite - and that's even in wars fought far from home and by professional armies without the need for universal conscription. Luckily very few people alive in the UK or USA today have experience of being in an active state of warfare, and even then the wars were not fought on home soil. Short message: by all means judge us. But do so with humility, praying to G-d that you will never need to find out how you, your country and your fellow citizens actually act in a situation of active warfare on home soil and your immediate borders.

Exactly - it wouldn’t have happened on US soil because of concerns about legal processes and other governance procedures. There are no prisoners on U.S. soil that are being held without trial either. Enhanced interrogation measures were terrible but at least didn’t require corrective surgery.

Of course I dont expect people to answer any question if they don’t want to!

I do read newspapers regularly but have yet to come across anything comparable in UK prisons - except by violence by other prisoners! Nothing comparable to the allegations against these 5 Israelis, resulting in the need for surgery to the poor Palestinian man. And also done in impunity and in the presence of so many others.
Imagine what it must also have been like for the other Palestinians made to lie on the floor and listen to what was happening. I can’t bring myself to watch the video, but can imagine how dreadful it must have been.

@Stripes56 wasn’t Guantanamo Bay literally set up there FOR that reason. So it was out of public gaze.

Also (and I know @israelilefty) can speak for themselves they had a long running thread on here and answered questions respectfully. They are not responsible nor I imagine have an answer to every question put to them.

I echo what has been said about the Maj Gen though and the response from the events. There was considerable outcry at the time in Israel. The recent events are about what they did.

@Stripes56 if you look at our prison system there are horrible abuses of power regularly. Do you have much experience of some of our worst prisons and what goes on?

What about the rapist that was paraded about on the television chat shows in Israel and the protests about the right to rape?

She felt she had to leak in the first place due to resistance about her investigating the assaults. I do agree with you about the seriousness of her misleading the supreme court - but, as an outsider - the main crime here is the alleged assaults, including sexual.

I cannot imagine anything like this happening on Uk and US soil- due to the governance structures in place. The reason the abuses happened in Iraq and even Guantanamo Bay was precisely because of lack of oversight - including legal.

Again, she is not being scapegoated for whistleblowing (she wasn't supposed to released the video, but that's one of the lesser issues here in legal terms): the seriousness of this case is because she and her colleagues lied in an affidavit to the Supreme Court and obstructed the course of justice.

And about abuse on your own soil - I don't see a difference on whose soil it takes place. Abuse of prisoners by soldiers is abuse of prisoners by soldiers. It just happens that the war with Iraq didn't take place on the UK or US border so they were able to conveniently situate the prisons out of sight overseas.

The five soldiers involved were arrested and have been charged with aggravated abuse and aggravated assault.

And what the US and UK did was a stain on their reputation- but wasn’t on Uk nor US soil. Cannot remember the whistleblowers being scapegoated.

Just as a reminder about the state of the detained at SdeTemain at the hands of the IDF:

Haaretz July 30 2024

Sde Teiman Doctor Who Saw Abused Gazan Detainee: 'I Couldn't Believe an Israeli Prison Guard Could Do Such a Thing'
Excerpt from the Haaretz article as a reminder of the injuries reported by the doctor who saw the detainee:

Information obtained by Haaretz shows that the Gazan detainee suffered from a ruptured bowel, a severe injury to his anus, lung damage and broken ribs. He was taken to a hospital for an operation.
"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," Donchin said.