Not Repulsive Anymore?
In 2007, a book based on research conducted at the Hebrew University examined how it could be that after nearly forty years of Israeli occupation in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, there had been almost no reports of rape committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian women. One of the explanations proposed in the study was that soldiers perceived Palestinian women as so repulsive and inferior that they refrained from raping them.
A few days ago, the award-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof published an opinion column in The New York Times under the headline “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians.” This is a scathing indictment based on interviews with alleged victims of sexual assaults by members of the security forces and settlers. The descriptions are graphic and revolting, provoking anger and disgust. They encompass the full spectrum of sexual abuse, from verbal harassment to rape involving dogs. According to the author, he approached Israel’s Ministry of Public Security for comment and was rebuffed.
Before addressing the substance of these claims, it must be said that if a request for comment was indeed ignored, this was a serious mistake on the part of Israel’s Ministry of National Security. Although the newspaper is far from sympathetic to Israel, and especially to its current government, it remains a prestigious and influential platform that cannot simply be dismissed. Its readers are not necessarily anti-Israel, and leaving such grave allegations unanswered could easily be interpreted by them as a form of tacit admission.
I begin with the assumption that it is entirely possible that soldiers committed crimes, including serious offences, during recent years. The fact that the IDF considers itself a moral army does not mean that its soldiers are angels; rather, it means that when information about crimes committed by soldiers reaches the IDF, it is seriously investigated, and if substantiated, the perpetrators are brought to trial.
As a former activist with a human rights organization, I learned how such organizations conduct investigations and acquired skills, including critical reading of reports. My academic work likewise frequently involves source analysis and credibility assessments.
Kristof does not live in the region, and it is doubtful that he speaks Arabic. He certainly did not go knocking on random doors in Judea and Samaria and politely ask homeowners whether they had been detained in recent years and whether they had been raped. He relied on accounts from people to whom he had been directed. His sources of information were two organizations: the United Nations, which routinely publishes defamatory reports against Israel under the guise of professionalism and objectivity, and an organization called Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which not long ago accused Israel of harvesting Palestinian organs (Kristof merely described it as “highly critical of Israel”).
At the outset of his article, Kristof argued that, in his view, the Israeli government does not actively initiate sexual assaults against detainees but “merely” turns a blind eye to them. This is not an innocent claim that mitigates Israel’s responsibility; rather, it primarily relieves the author of the burden of proving the existence of such directives.
The least credible story concerns rape involving a dog. Dogs do not rape humans unless they have undergone special training. This is not something carried out privately in someone’s home; it would require an institutionalized training program. Such a reality would not be possible if the government were merely “turning a blind eye” to rape rather than orchestrating it.
The article includes various testimonies, most of them anonymous. Ostensibly, this is understandable: people who have undergone sexual abuse are reluctant to expose themselves publicly. However, Kristof’s article lacks three fundamental W‘s: Who, Where, and When. The alleged assaults took place in undisclosed locations, with no dates provided, and no names of the alleged perpetrators. Suppose someone receives such a complaint. What exactly are they expected to do with it? In its current state, Kristof’s article is gossip.
Moreover, without expressing an opinion on what occurred in the “Force 100” affair at Sde Teiman, protests against alleged torture at that facility began long before the sexual assault allegations surfaced. Almost all the demonstrators were Israeli citizens who had heard that torture was allegedly taking place there. How did they know? The IDF is a heterogeneous army; virtually every unit contains people from across Israel’s social and political spectrum. Consequently, when actions occur within a unit that conflict with the values of some of its members, information tends to leak into civilian society and become public. The “Force 100” affair began when someone on the base staff noticed bleeding in a detainee, referred him to the clinic, which in turn transferred him to a hospital, where suspicions arose that he had been raped. Following this, the Military Police opened an investigation. In other words, the IDF investigates independently whether crimes are being committed within its ranks.
Given the hostility of the organizations on which Kristof relied, the anonymity of the alleged perpetrators, the absence of locations and dates, and the lack of corroboration from internal Israeli sources, it is highly likely that most, if not all, of these allegations are fabrications or, at the very least, gross exaggerations.
The monstrous crimes committed by Palestinians on the 7th of October 2023 led certain sanctimonious types to attempt to balance the narrative, namely, to claim that not only Palestinians sexually assaulted Israelis, but Israelis also commit similar acts. The crucial difference is that Israel denies these allegations, and the alleged acts, if they occurred at all, took place behind closed doors and without documentation and are not corroborated by external evidence. Furthermore, Israeli security forces have a proven decades-long record of not raping detainees, and independent internal investigations are regular and meticulous. On the other side, Palestinian atrocities were extensively documented, including by the perpetrators themselves.
An early indication of this trend appeared in accusations circulated during the war alleging that IDF soldiers had raped Palestinian women in Gaza. In that case, the accusers later publicly retracted the claims. This is a typical blood libel. It tells a horrifying story that cannot be disproven, with the aim of portraying Jews as cruel and monstrous. That’s how it has always been, and that’s how it is in this case as well.