Abuse by Israeli soldiers

[justanotherpassword]

Israeli military's ex-top lawyer arrested over leak of video allegedly showing Palestinian detainee abuse https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0kpd97qqko

@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 imagine not what you’re looking for though.

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 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.

@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

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?

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

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.

@Everexpandingi am not deflecting criticism more wondering why someone who comes across as an intelligent person needs to exaggerate and spin things so extremely if you honestly think the facts (as they stand) speak for themselves?

It doesn’t show any understanding of what is actually happening and how it’s perceived. Which makes me question your motivation.

Please tell me where I have exaggerated or spun things ?
@stomachamelon
my only motivation on this site is to counter the constant dehumanisation of Palestinians that I have seen on here, the minimising of the fact that 67,000 people have been killed in Gaza and to counter some very pro Israeli viewpoints. I think the Israeli government needs to be held to account for its actions both since October 7th and previously. It is a view shared by many Jews and some Israelis

Sorry @israelilefty I missed this before.

I realised that but think that charge of aggravated assault purposely misses out the charge of ‘rape’; and I was also thinking of Katz saying the charge against them is ‘blood libel’ as though it were false; and thinking of how they and others are calling for their names to be cleared on the grounds their trial can’t be fair.

The covered up leak may be wrong but is also being found very useful by the wrong doers.

Lots of personal attacks there to my mind.

There is no doubt from the injuries that the assault included anal penetration - this is widely reported and not in question. I have no inside information on the case other than what is reported, but my best guess is that the charge of rape was dropped for technical reasons; since this was reportedly done by just one of them, I'm guessing that the prosecution might not have enough evidence regarding which of them that charge should be filed against in order to achieve a conviction.

Yes, far right politicians plus the lawyers of the 5 soldiers are trying as much as possible to spin this against the military justice system by claiming that the charges are trumped up and the video is false. However, that this is spin is abundantly obvious and it's not how mainstream news sources in Israel are reporting this incident.

Why use the word abuse? The prisoners bowell was ruptured. It was gang rape. Certainly not the only incident, just one for which footage was leaked.

And the Israeli government leaders calling it 'blood libel' - does that just mean inconvenient truth now. The weaponisation of antisemitism to excuse crimes against humanity needs to be called out by everyone.

From sources I follow I thought the gang rape allegation was false and the video was doctored as the time stamps showed different days and apparently on one of them the alleged victim was not even in Sde Tieman?

Why the need to doctor footage?

The video does not show evidence of a gang rape from what I can see? There was a medical report saying there was no evidence of rape?

It was then discovered the MAG approved the leak of the doctored footage and tried to cover up the leak?

What evidence that the rape allegation was true was published in Israeli media?

There seems to be some suspicion that this has been a ‘deep state’ conspiracy. I have read similar suspicions from Israelis about Oct 7th itself being let happen, expecting only military hostages to be taken, to topple Netanyahu’s government which is too dispicable for words if true?

What are your thoughts on this as an Israeli?

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-872854

I don't know what sources you follow, but an op-ed by a right wing American-Israeli activist in the Jerusalem Post (itself not a particularly high quality newspaper) who is pushing a deep state conspiracy is not a reliable source of news.

I extensively read and follow mainstream Israeli news sources in Hebrew, and I have heard no credible doubt in the veracity of the video or whether the individual was in Sde Teiman (in any case, the soldiers were arrested before the video was even released). I have not seen the video and do not intend to do so, but the very serious injuries he suffered which are documented in medical records are consistent with the allegations. More specific details of these reported in the Israeli media, which I am not going to repeat here.

And no: no Israelis (well at least no sane ones) are saying that Oct 7 was "let happen". This is also even more absurd than the deep state allegations. It is inconsistent with everything we know about Oct 7, including Sinwar's planning (even if we supposed somehow it was known about - the plan focused on kidnapping civilians from kibbutzim).

Please, if you want to know what Israelis are thinking, replace your "sources" with some actual news that's connected to what real Israelis are experiencing and thinking, not some tiny fringe of right-wing conspiracy theorists in the West Bank, who are trying to somehow discredit the video and the entire justice system in a transparent attempt to deflect attention from the actual incident itself.

English sources do tend to be much less well informed than Hebrew ones and/or to have a very strong agenda. For those looking for something that reasonably accurately gives insight into the mainstream Israeli news, I have often recommended on here the podcast Unholy, which is co-presented by Yonit Levy, an anchor of Israel's most watched, mainstream, news broadcast (channel 12) and has knowledgeable guests. Friday's episode talked, among other things, about the Sde Teiman affair.

Thank you for explaining why the conspiracy/deep fake theories about the Sde Temain abuse, or about Oct 7, referred to by the pp as having been in the Jerusalem post, do not make sense or reflect what normal Israelis think @israelilefty .

Thanks too for suggesting the podcast Unholy as a source for information.

To add to my previous reply, here is an in depth refutation of the deep state conspiracy and of government minister “blood libel” claims by a respected Israeli journalist, based on the established facts. I don’t know how well it will auto translate or how comprehensible all the political references will be to an outsider, but you can try.

www.ynet.co.il/news/article/rkd6g5jkwx?utm_source=ynet.app.ios&utm_term=rkd6g5jkwx&utm_campaign=general_share&utm_medium=social&utm_content=Header

Thank you very much. Having used Google translate to read through this article bit by bit, I can certainly see what you mean that nothing in English is as detailed.

In fact what you can find to read about this Sde Temain abuse and aftermath in English does not even approach this (Hebrew) Ynet level of factual detail, or nuance in interpreting it.

From the comments section, Ronen Berg is not very respected by all of Israel. I see he used to write for Haaretz.

How is he so adamant that the leaked video was not doctored do you think?

I don’t know the answer (not that you asked me).

For me the video is irrelevant compared to the injuries inflicted on the detainee, and where they were inflicted. The detainee arrived in the hospital injured in the way he was well before the video was leaked.

Wasn’t there medical evidence refuting the rape claim though or has that been debunked?

I’ll listen to the Podcasts.

I must admit I’m always sceptical about attempts to portray Israel in a bad light since Oct 7th.

I’m not Israeli or Jewish and it doesn’t affect me at all but having done some research into the background of this conflict, the treatment of the Jewish people throughout history, and the surge of antisemitism, anti Zionism and delegitimisation of Israel since Oct 7th which seems to have been the intended consequence, it baffles me as an outsider that even Israelis/the Jewish people don’t seem to be on the same side.

"From the comments section, Ronen Berg is not very respected by all of Israel. I see he used to write for Haaretz." - People who write talkbacks on news websites are hardly representative of the whole population. Like in any other country, Israeli political opinion is hugely diverse. But Ronen Bergman is by any standard a serious, experienced investigative journalist who has written for newspapers of the highest calibre and won multiple prizes for his journalism.

"How is he so adamant that the leaked video was not doctored do you think?" - Because there is no evidence for that, and it has been admitted as evidence in a court trial.

"Wasn’t there medical evidence refuting the rape claim though or has that been debunked?" Read the article I linked. Both the injuries and the polygraph test results (which were confirmed by a second examiner) point to this. While the details in the article are very graphic, the journalist refrains for going into the exact reason why the specific rape charge was dropped in favour of the two aggravated assault charges, which actually carry a heavier penalty than the rape charge would have.

"I must admit I’m always sceptical about attempts to portray Israel in a bad light since Oct 7th." - There are plenty of those. But a lot of shit stuff also happens during wars. Frankly I think that these ridiculous attempts of ministers to deflect attention and whitewash this horrific abuse portray Israel in a far worse light than a military justice system actually taking action against those involved. And don't forget: this really is a deflection. This case was in the news and the soldiers were arrested before the video was linked - and it would likely have been made public anyway during the trial.

"it baffles me as an outsider that even Israelis/the Jewish people don’t seem to be on the same side"

This is a weird comment. Do you expect any other group/population to all think the same?

The Jewish people are fairly unique in the context I described. How is it a weird comment? I don’t expect they all think the same and I didn’t say they should.

The political infighting is very destructive though,