Israel’s rape entitlement stems from its foundation

Israel’s rape problem is rooted in the country’s very foundation. Ever since 1947, raping Palestinian men and women has been a constant feature of the state’s existence.

And then, slowly and steadily, the crime that victimised Palestinian people began to permeate into Israeli society – as it morphed into a culture where Israeli women became unsafe amid sexual predators allowed to freely roam the streets.

The social degeneration happened in phases.

Phase one involved the creation of Israel in 1947. In the making of the Jewish state, rape was one of the tools used in displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians. Israeli historian Benny Morris has charted the course of armed Zionist gangs going on a rampage 1948 onwards, killing Palestinians en masse, raping and mutilating their women.

Morris has been a war hawk, justifying the violent methods of Zionist kingpin David Ben Gurion, who’s considered as the founding father of Israel, but he also identifies acts of massacre the Zionist forces have committed throughout the history of Israel.

In one of his groundbreaking interviews, he says that between April and May 1948, a Zionist terror group named Haganah, which operated under the orders of Ben Gurion, engaged in mass killings and rapes in several Palestinian neighbourhoods. The historical evidence Morris collected over the years suggested most rape victims were murdered.

In a chilling conclusion, he writes: “Various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter.”

With terror groups like Haganah, Irgun, the Stern Gan metamorphosing into a regular Israeli army in 1948, the country’s military establishment inherited rape and female mutilation as tools in their arsenal. And the future generations of the Israeli army internalised such sadistic behaviours as legal or societal pushbacks have been meagre.

Military rape victims

The second phase of this degeneration involves sex offences taking place within the military establishment itself, with Israeli female soldiers being victims.

In 2001, former Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai was convicted of sexually assaulting two women -- one had served as a soldier under Mordechai in 1992, when he led Israel's northern command. Another woman reported that in 1996, while serving as defense minister, Mordechai attacked her when she visited his home after he offered assistance in finding her a job.

In 2010, former Israeli president Moshe Katsav was jailed for raping a female subordinate when he was a cabinet minister in the 1990s. The court also held him guilty of sexually assaulting two woman while serving as the country's president.

Such cases of sexual violence and assault are widespread but often go unheard.

In October 2019, senior officer Shai Elbaz resigned as the head of operations for the Israeli navy after several female officers, who were his subordinates, testified to Israel’s Channel 12 that a decade earlier Elbaz had abused his authority to coerce them into illicit sexual relationships.

In 2016, another Israeli military officer Ofek Buchris, who was projected as a role model and future head of the Israeli army, faced indictment for sodomising and sexually assaulting two female subordinates between 2010 and 2012.

An incriminating report published by the Comptroller in 2022 proved that at least one out of every four female officers in the Israeli Prison Service and police units had been sexually harassed at least once.

The Israeli army released disturbing data in 2020, revealing that the indictment rate for sexual assaults within the military establishment stood at mere 2.01 percent. Data collected during 2019 suggested the military tribunals had received 1542 complaints of sexual assaults, including rapes and sodomy. Of these, only 31 cases were deemed serious enough for investigation, with the rest being dismissed.

Such a rape-friendly mindset is reflected in the not-too-distant past, with the Israeli army appointing Colonel Eyal Karim as its new chief rabbi in 2016. Rabbi Karim once went as far as condoning rape in times of war, as long as the victims were non-Jewish women.

Rape apologists

The normalisation of sexual violence on the basis of religious identity is persistent in much of the Jewish society. Its ugly manifestation once again came to light in late July when a number of Israeli soldiers gang raped a Palestinian detainee in Sde Teiman prison facility.

The assault was so brutal that the victim, who hailed from Gaza, was hospitalised with a torn rectum, broken ribs and ruptured bowels. Hospital records proved the injuries were caused by foreign objects inserted into his rectum.

The incident sparked a global outcry, with Israel’s main war financier, the US, calling it “horrific”. Under pressure, the Israeli military police attempted to take the perpetrators into custody, though on-duty soldiers on the prison premises initially resisted. Soon after, a far-right mob backed by prominent lawmakers from Israel’s ruling coalition stormed into the prison facility to shield the nine reservists who were involved in the horrendous act of gang rape.

A few days later, one of the reservists involved in the gang rape appeared on an Israeli TV channel, defending himself and his fellow rapists. The country’s prime time TV shows began discussing whether soldiers raping Palestinians should be prosecuted or not. Soon after, a Tel Aviv university survey revealed that such perverted views were not just confined to a select-few institutions but a majority of Israelis believed that Israeli soldiers should not be prosecuted for raping Palestinians.

Denial and delusion

Denial and delusion has been a permanent feature of Israeli conscience when it comes to addressing the issue of rape.

In 2021, when the NGO Defense for Children - Palestine (DCI-P) exposed facts surrounding an Israeli interrogator who had physically and sexually assaulted a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in Israeli custody, DCI-P’s office was raided by Israeli authorities. The NGO was stripped of its equipment and was labelled a “terrorist organisation”.

The sense of entitlement to assault non-Jewish people has led the Israeli army to commit acts of sexual perversion without remorse on numerous occasions. For instance, in 2002, when Israeli forces occupied Palestinian TV stations, they aired pornography on local channels. Although two decades have passed, this moral depravity has been passed on to the next generation of soldiers, who proudly filmed themselves stealing Palestinian women’s underwear during the ongoing invasion of Gaza and even posed naked on the streets.

While rape has always been a weapon of choice for the Israeli army, it has also victimised Israeli women leading a normal civilian life.

Rape cases have risen by over 40 percent between 2014 and 2017 in Israel, according to The Association of Rape Crisis Center. Israeli rights group HaStickeriot has recorded an average of 260 rape cases being filed daily in Israel, with over 60 percent of victims being minors.

Many rabbis and Orthodox Jews in Israel have also been accused of raping Israeli minors and the country has been described as a sanctuary for Jewish American sexual predators and paedophiles many of whom are granted asylum there after fleeing legal repercussions in the US.

Given the mounting evidence of Israeli sexual crimes against Palestinians and recent debates about the legality of such offences, the road to atonement is long, as it involves uprooting the Israeli hatred for Palestinian bodies that is deeply engraved in the very origin of Israel.