Enabling Palestinian Sexual Humiliation and Suffering After NYT Opinion Piece
For almost the last three years, Jews, Israelis, and everyone following the conflict in the Middle East have been reminded of the atrocities that occurred on October 7th, 2023. Atrocities that include the murder of men, women, children, and even babies. Even more heartbreaking was the torture that many women had to experience as they were being sexually assaulted by Hamas during the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Reading about these acts devastated me, because it is often reported by survivors of rape that death is preferred over living with the daily reminder that a person’s innocence and sense of control is dead. For many survivors of October 7th, the journey to peace will be long, and, sadly, for some, it will be too insufferable to continue living. I mourn for each individual because no human deserves to experience such torment; unfortunately, this week, I’ve realized that some only hold this empathy for Jews while enabling the sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees.
Last week, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof, titled The Horror of Sexual Assault in Israeli Prisons. The article came to my attention when several far-right Zionist influencers started claiming that the article was “blood libel” and endangers Jews. They claimed that the article spread lies about dogs being trained to rape people and that the article had no reliable sources. Because of this, I became curious about the article and wanted to see what the deceit was all about. By the time I finished the article, I was astonished by the blowback it received and sad that major Jewish and counter-extremist organizations attempted to discredit the article instead of advocating for an independent investigation to determine if human rights violations were occurring in Israeli prisons.
The article consists of interviews of 14 Palestinian men and women who claim at some point during the detainment that they were sexually abused by Israeli guards. One individual identified in the article, Sami al-Sai, 46, states, “They were all hitting me, and one stepped on my head and neck,” he said. “Someone pulled my pants down. They pulled down my boxers.” And then one of the guards pulled out a rubber baton used to beat prisoners”. Another individual who decided to remain anonymous reported that IDF soldiers repeatedly stripped her naked, handcuffed her hands behind her back, and bent her forward at the waist, sometimes forcing her head into the toilet, losing consciousness from the abuse.
Critics of this reporting have since demanded empirical evidence to support the claim that the Israeli army has a systemic sexual violence problem. However, not only does Nicholas Kristof’s article offer reports from human rights organizations like Save The Children and B’Tselem that support his claim that rape and torture likely occur in Israeli military detention centers. The demand for immediate proof from critics illustrates how uninformed they are about the complexity of sexual violence. In the US alone, one in four women will experience sexual assault, but the majority of women will never go on to report these attacks. Reasons for not reporting include shame, trauma, and fear of retaliation, but more importantly, because women in the US are aware that they live in a society where sexual assault goes unpunished when you have power. Take, for instance, Donald Trump, who was caught on Access Hollywood in 2005 saying:
“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything”.
The same person who would then go on to win the 2016 and 2024 US presidential elections. For many victims of sexual assault in the US, it is pointless to report these atrocities because they know there is a media ecosystem in place that will victim-blame them just as it did to Christine Blasey Ford when she spoke out against Supreme Court nominee at the time Brett Kavanaugh, whom she accused of sexually assaulting her in the summer of 1982. I suspect that the demoralization that women in the US feel about the justice system is the same demoralization that Palestinians feel in the Israeli prison system. Because far-right Zionist influencers have gone out of their way to discredit and mock the suffering of Palestinian men, women, and children throughout this war, it is less likely that any victim of sexual abuse by the Israeli army will feel encouraged to speak out. Such a scenario just enables the violation of human rights.
This is especially true after Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar threatened to sue the New York Times for a supposed “blood libel”. In a statement on X, the Israeli Foreign Ministry wrote:
“Following the publication by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times of one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press, which also received the backing of the newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar have instructed the initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.”
In a statement to Reuters, Netanyahu would add, “They defamed the soldiers of Israel and perpetuated a blood libel about rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel’s valiant soldiers.” Similar accusations were made by prominent far-right Zionist influencer, Zack Sage Fox, who protested in front of the New York Times headquarters in NYC, claiming that the opinion piece put all NYC Jews in danger. Ironically, that claim is antisemitic in nature because the article never blames all Jews for the sexual abuse that has been enabled within Israeli prisons, and conflating the corruption and the dehumanization that the Israeli government expresses towards Palestinians with the Jewish people is one of the criteria of antisemitism according to the IHRA definition, which Zack Sage Fox has advocated to be coded into law.
From a public relations standpoint, the Israeli Foreign Ministry chose the worst option to mitigate the impact of Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times opinion piece. Instead of ignoring it, it gave it a life of its own. At face value, the idea that a foreign nation is attempting to suppress American journalism is the type of conspiratorial narrative that antisemitic influencers like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes can only dream of using to radicalize their audience. Yet, Israel has provided it like a Christmas present. Any advocate for freedom of speech should fundamentally be opposed to Netanyahu’s attempt to intimidate journalism, regardless of their political identity, because to do otherwise is to allow foreign entities to dictate what information should and should not be allowed. As a consumer of news, it is my right to determine what I will and will not consume, not a government, and especially not Benjamin Netanyahu.
The torture and rape of the victims of October 7 should always be condemned, and those who committed those atrocities should be met with every force of the law, but not because the victims are only Jewish, but because they are humans first worthy of dignity and respect. I carry this sentiment to Palestinian victims of sexual and physical abuse whose stories might not be verified by the Israeli government, but whose dehumanization by the same government has been well documented. At a minimum, every person who reads Nicholas Kristof’s opinion piece should demand an independent investigation to shed further light on this problem. If someone is going to discredit, mock, and call out “blood libel” on this reporting, then they must admit to themselves that rape is not an immoral act, but a weapon that can only be acceptable when used on their enemies.
