7 ms·
Israeli soldiers using sexual assault to force Palestinians out of West Bank
- thot_experiment 6mo agoUS support for Israel is one of the most horrible things imaginable, really makes me ashamed. It is only the US standing between the current horrendous status quo and Israel being an true international pariah state. Hopefully we cut off support and usher in a find out era.
- thot_experiment 6mo ago(Though to be honest my position is probably that we need to go past cutting off support and US tax dollars should go toward reparations for Palesine, Lebanon and probably Iran and others, we are complicit in a lot of fucked shit.) ((I don't think those places are lead by great individuals and everything is amazing to be clear, I also think the people there have suffered immensely from a century of american, british and israeli meddling and we should be held accountable))
- Allfodr 6mo ago[flagged]
- tristanb 6mo agoWhy?
- Allfodr 6mo agoBecause I don't think US tax money should go toward reparations for Palestine, Lebanon, Iran or anywhere else. We're not 'complicit' in the way you're framing it
- thot_experiment 6mo agoThe only reason Israel is able to commit the horrors they are is because they can fuck around without finding out due to US protection paid for by our tax dollars, we are absolutely complicit. Of course that's only in the immediate term, I urge you to look at the history of the region even a little critically, so much of the conflict there is rooted in British, American and Israeli meddling, it's an insane take to claim that we are not responsible and that we have not benefited immensely.
- Allfodr 6mo agoNo, money has nothing to do with it. The US military aid package to Israel is only around 2-3% of Israel's annual state budget. That's a relatively small amount, and far less significant than people tend to make it out to be. The US provides this aid because it serves American interests. A large portion of the money is actually spent in the US, benefiting the American defense industry, not just financially but also through technological development and shared innovation. What Israel truly gains from the relationship with the US is diplomatic cover, mainly the UN Security Council veto. Israel is by far the most condemned country at the UN in terms of resolutions passed against it, whether that's justified or not is a separate debate.
- thot_experiment 6mo agoI don't understand what the purpose of making a distinction between monetary support in terms of direct aid, and indirect aid. The entire apparatus of the US government is paid for by our taxes, we pay for it either way. We also pay for it in instability and negative sentiment. > Israel is by far the most condemned country at the UN in terms of resolutions passed against it It's crazy to me that you know this and yet it seems like you are still in support of the US protecting Israel? You still think this is a net win for the world? That's incomprehensible to me.
- Allfodr 6mo ago> It's crazy to me that you know this and yet it seems like you are still in support of the US protecting Israel? You still think this is a net win for the world? That's incomprehensible to me. It's crazy to me that you know the UN is literally run by states that actually commit war crimes, kill LGBTQ people, suppress women and minority rights, countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and you still think UN condemnation means anything. They're condemning the only democratic country in the entire Middle East, the one place in the region where these rights actually matter and mean something. Arab citizens can vote, gay people can live openly, women sit in parliament and serve in the military. That's Israel. And that's who they keep putting on trial. Of course I fully support the aid for Israel.
- _DeadFred_ 6mo ago[dead]
- suburban_strike 6mo agoThis is "let's you and him fight" logic. We've already given Israel almost $400 billion. Subrogate them for Palestinian reparations instead of billing everything to us like a teenage girl let loose at the mall with Daddy's credit card.
- anal_reactor 6mo ago[flagged]
- thot_experiment 6mo agoI wonder if Iran being a dictatorship has a cause? Why does the Arab world hate Israel I wonder? Everything you're talking about is basically a direct result of UK, US and israeli bullshit in the area. It's people with exactly the same sort of colonial geopolitical ideas as you that CAUSED THE MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
- spwa4 6mo ago[flagged]
- thot_experiment 6mo agoWhat are you on about lmao, what is "leftist thought". My ideology? I'm not my ideology, my ideology is an ever shifting set of ideals I explore to try to build an internally consistent model for decision making. How in the world does a belief in US/UK meddling being the proximal cause for many of the modern issues in the region have anything to do with the crimes of the Kremlin. Can you please engage with the substance of my claims in any way? I'm not here to defend whatever "leftism" means to you.
- spwa4 6mo ago> How in the world does a belief in US/UK meddling ... Because you exclude all other meddling as an explanation. The Kremlin is the other big source of meddling (if you rate them by success in actually changing things, US is on top. Moscow is a distant second, and the third is so far behind it's barely worth mentioning, also it's unclear who that even is), so the assumption is you implicitly defend if you attack US meddling. Compare to when 2 people are fighting in the playground and you complain only about ONE of them hitting things, without making any remark about the other, or taking any kind of measure to get the other to stop. People like to describe that as neutrality, but of course, it is anything but. Which then gets confusing because people who are badly informed might start to genuinely believe only one of them was hitting, and might even blame the first for all damages. Of course, this is exactly the point of one-sided reporting, even if the reporting itself is 100% true. Even the BBC is doing it these days, little to no reporting on what happens (imho, not because it's going well) in the UK, and "news in support of UK foreign policy" everywhere else. Oh and separate views for UK people and international viewers. And yes, that's in some ways the same Iran does, but there's no bullets or executions involved if you try to get around it, a pretty big difference. In this conflict the US is defending, let's call it "international liberalism" (in the French revolution sense, ie. laissez-faire), or what the UN calls "freedom of navigation". Which is a euphemism for tax-free international trade over the seas. I get that there are name clashes with for example US politics, let's please not focus the discussion on whether those names are deserving, or who they (don't) match in US politics. And, yes, preventing Iran from getting a nuke falls under liberalism, as in Iran getting a nuke will definitely kill a freedom of navigation in that part of the world. The other side, ie. Russia/China, if we're only counting UN SC members, is about locking down international trade behind political agreements (which is also a euphemism: these agreements were historically never agreements, but rather the outcomes of wars), ie. letting Russia and China, since they have nuclear weapons, decide who gets oil from the middle east and who doesn't. Through threats. So you when you attack one side, getting criticized for supporting the other side, is fair. If you don't know the other side, that's called being badly informed, that's literally just dumb and then really you should shut up.
- bryanlarsen 6mo agoUS support for Netanyahu is one of the most horrible things imaginable. US support for a non-Netanyahu Israel may not be so much. The distinction is important, at the very least so people don't call you an anti-Semite. But even without that, I think it's important. I'm anti-Trump, anti-Netanyahu, anti-Hamas, and anti-IRGC, but not anti-US, anti-Israel, anti-Palestine or anti-Iran. The citizens of those countries are the victims of their leaders.
- thot_experiment 6mo agoI said what I said; israel is the problem, I have no significant beef with Judaism (no more than any religion and less than some). https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-extremes-of-israeli-public-opinion https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-extremes-of-israe...
- TitaRusell 6mo agoThe first woman doctor in the Netherlands was Jewish. Ofcourse nowadays Dutch/European Jewish culture is utterly despised by Israelis because it was secular and liberal.
- micik 6mo agoI recommend you read the book World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig. The experience of the world Jewry in (pre-)WW2 continental Europe was so shockingly brutal, the establishment of the state of Israel was an inevitability. Jews were the scapegoat driven out from cities into the desert to amend for other's sins for millenia. Some would say they've gotten used to it. The bestial conduct of Nazis was such that even the people for whom the experience of persecution was a fact of life and indeed their toleration of the condition almost stoic in nature, came to realize they had to have a place where they are not the Other and won't be scapegoated again. And so it happened. To paint a picture with words...Stefan Zweig, model intellectual and model European, ended his life in 1942 at age 61 in Brazil, having lost his home of 20 years in Salzburg, his beloved Europe and, in his own words, a large part of himself. The worst exponents of Europe in Nazi uniforms and their collaborators, the "decent people" of Germany, Austria and other countries, killed the best exponents of Europe and Europeanism, over insane paranoiac deluded hate. Killed them slowly, then quickly. Indirectly, by stripping them of everything they considered theirs, then very directly in extermination facilities. The people who suffered this horror established a state and Europe lost intelligentsia and human capital it could not afford to lose. Fin. Just five years ago, saying that the state of Israel is the problem would have you branded an anti-semite and driven out of polite society and rightly so. As a non-Jew with no skin in the game, I find the reawakening of these sentiments horrifying.
- culi 6mo agoNothing to say. Just absolutely maddening that this is what my taxes go to accomplish
- firefoxd 6mo agoThe language in the article would be fascinating if it wasn't such a horrible thing. It's not that the Israeli soldiers are sexually assaulting Palestinians, instead they are using Sexual Assault. Later they say "Sexualised violence is used...", "men and boys were Targeted..." It's like there is a gun shooting people, or someone using a gun. But we can't connect fully understand how or who is perpetuating it. Edit: some more: "Israeli soldiers present during abuse had repeatedly failed to prevent it..." Who was abusing?
- culi 6mo agoThe settlers. They are there illegally and do illegal things but the soldiers are there to provide them with functional immunity
- woggy 6mo agoLook up the article in Ha'aretz recently "IDF Soldiers Talk About the 'Moral Injury' – and the Silence" for another example of this. I mean, I am glad they are talking about it, but the way it is framed is maddening.
- throw_a_grenade 6mo ago> Who was abusing? It's possible that in some cases it was settlers. So technically not soldiers. But soldiers protected them, incl. from any resisting abuse.
- appreciatorBus 6mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- throw_a_grenade 6mo ago„There” — you mean where? Generally in the West Bank or intruding into Palestinian homes to abuse their children? I'd wager Palestinians would throw them out of their homes. Instead, parents had to stand there helpless. If you meant generally, I think they wouldn't be there without soldiers at all, illegaly tranfering own population into occupied territories.
- woggy 6mo agoIf only hell was real.
- Iridescent_ 6mo agoWell it sure must seem real for Palestinians. And it's just called life on Earth.
- datsci_est_2015 6mo agoI’m a fan of media that conveys the message that hell is real and it’s what we manufacture as humans, like 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. In fact, the broad theme of the 28 * Later series is that even with the most hellish events unfolding, humans are still capable of being depraved to the limits of our imagination.
- Balgair 6mo agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUeBMwn_eYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUeBMwn_eYc "War isn't Hell. War is war and Hell is hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse" "How do you figure that Hawkeye?" "Easy Father, tell me, who goes to Hell?" "Hmm, sinners, I believe" "Exactly, there are no innocent bystanders in Hell. But war is shot full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for a few of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander"
- Noumenon72 6mo ago[flagged]
- throw_a_grenade 6mo ago> Not clear whether soldiers are acting on their own or following policy. It mostly doesn't matter, unless they're punished. If they're not, then the policy is, what they did is okay. That's why it's important to keep army disciplined.
- Noumenon72 6mo agoIt doesn't matter for things that are bad whether they are policy or not, like sexual assault. It matters for things that are okay if they are policy, like strip searches. If prison guards do strip searches on their own for fun, that is a problem, but the mandated ones are not. (Assuming the policy was made with a normal level of concern for human dignity and officer safety.)
- moinism 6mo ago[flagged]
- gostsamo 6mo agoThe christian supporters of Israel can also think a bit about the itf soldiers destroying a statue of Jesus in Lebanon if they want to understand what they are supporting. Useful idiots doesn't even start to describe it. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd575n1znzo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd575n1znzo
- omnimus 6mo agoAnything for Second Coming of Jesus
- siliconpotato 6mo agoMaybe they were carrying out exodus 20:4... It's ironic that netanyahu says that Christians are thriving in Israel and more than any other middle Eastern country. Only 2% of Israel identifies as Christian, whereas Lebanon has 37%, which Israel is bombing
- jalapenoj 6mo agoAnd Iraq used to have Christians before the pointless wars for israel, now it doesn’t.
- watwut 6mo agoI kinda feel like from all the things going on ... breaking statue is the least of the things. Like, who cares.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- gostsamo 6mo agoThe evangelists in the US support Israel imagining that there is a special relationship between christians and jews. Many jews in Israel seem to find this useful and try not to contradict them while remaining hateful fanatics at heart. Stories like this one show a glimps at what is going on and therefore are worth pointing out when surfacing. They frame the murders, and sexual assaults, and destruction as the ethnic cleansing fueled by greed and hate toward anyone else that it is.
- appreciatorBus 6mo ago[flagged]
- woggy 6mo agoStraight from IDF soliders: One incident did leave a scar. It happened at an army outpost in southern Gaza. "I was sitting there in the command room," Maya says. "Suddenly, the soldiers on watch noticed five Palestinians crossing the line they weren't allowed to cross, heading for northern Gaza. "Everybody went crazy. There was a big mess. The battalion commander gave an order to overwhelm them with fire, even though they hadn't been confirmed as armed or anything like that. A tank started shooting at them with its machine gun. Hundreds of bullets." She says four of the five Palestinians were killed. "A few hours later, a D9 [Caterpillar armored bulldozer] buried them in the sand. When I asked why, they said that it was so the dogs wouldn't eat them and spread disease. The one who survived was put in a cage at the outpost, and they said we had to wait for a Shin Bet man to interrogate him." The Palestinian sat there, cuffed and blindfolded, and seemed to be freezing from the cold. "Suddenly, one of the soldiers took out his penis and started pissing on him. He told him, 'This is for Be'eri, you asshole, this is for Nova'"– Kibbutz Be'eri and the Nova music festival, two of the sites attacked by Hamas on October 7, 2023. "Nobody could stop laughing. I might have laughed too."
- appreciatorBus 6mo ago[flagged]
- woggy 6mo agoWe don't fund Hamas with our tax dollars. Actually, Israelis were funding Hamas with their tax dollars not too long ago. I wonder why? Also, this is what most of Gaza looks like now. Are you aware of this? https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2025/01/IMGL8385.jpg https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2025/01/IMGL8385.jpg
- omnimus 6mo agoJust like you are not neutral. You can't just say that any article after October 7 exist just as persuasion - everything and everyone is against Israel? This automatically seems extremely suspicious to anyone with basic knowledge of how conflicts work.
- totetsu 6mo ago[flagged]
- naoric 6mo ago[dead]
- thrance 6mo agoMass rape has strictly nothing to do with "sexual liberation". In fact, you see way more rapes in conservative countries of the global south than in more liberal ones. Rape happens when there is a power imbalance and a total lack of repercussions: exactly the situation in the West Bank.
- jamesfisher 6mo ago[flagged]
- sethammons 6mo agoSexual assault and violence is the biblical explanation for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah according to more and more modern biblical scholars. The Christian's who hate the gays should instead direct their bible and politicians at Israeli soldiers and their government.
- suburban_strike 6mo agoDon't trust Christians to interpret Jewish literature. They're still struggling with the "immaculate conception" of the "virgin" Mary. This was common enough that the rabbis weighed in and set the precedent for "technical virginity" (anal) that was later attributed to Catholics. The residents of Sodom were directly offered Lot's virgin daughters, and they politely declined, preferring to sodomize the angels Lot was harboring. God glassed both cities because the city was full of degenerates that held nothing sacred. Lot's daughters both raped him immediately after fleeing the city and nobody had anything to say about it, so rape cannot possibly be the offense the Sodomites were punished for.
- throwa632 6mo ago[dead]
- datsci_est_2015 6mo agoThe reality that war goes hand-in-hand with sexual violence is rarely fairly portrayed in American / Hollywood media. It sickens me when I see warhounds in our government who are, by extension of campaigning for war, rooting for sexual violence against entire populations - though they might not realize it through their ignorance. That’s why I appreciate anti-war cinema, like Come and See, which notoriously came from Belarusian screenwriters.
- kennykartman 6mo agoYep, war is the shittiest of things and rarely it is described completely for what it is. Humans following orders are well known to be ruthless and humans in power places are known to abuse their power. Add this to brainwashing and religious propaganda and beliefs, makes this kind of war a particularly shitty one.
- camgunz 6mo agoThis is absurdly one-sided. The "report" is just a summary of internet articles, two of which are from The Guardian itself, which makes this some weird content laundering situation. It also--obviously on purpose--leaves out IDF's response to the incident at Wadi-as-Seeq: "'After the initial investigation, a decision was made to dismiss the commander of the unit that carried out the arrest. Due to the seriousness of the suspicions, it was decided to open a Military Police investigation,' the army said." Sounds like that guy is in deep shit! I'm so tired of this garbage. The Guardian had to have read this Times of Israel article because the details it reports (ex: the date) aren't included in the report, but they leave out the part where the commander is under investigation by the Military Police? What a joke.
- proshno 6mo agoThis is not something new. israel has been doing this since Nakba and it’s well recorded even by the israeli historians and academics around the world. Their atrocities against humanity were just not allowed to be exposed by the Epstein class. Here are some more studies and reports on this topic, in case anyone interested to know the extent of israeli sexual violence against Palestinians: 1. https://israelpalestinenews.org/israeli-torture-core-element/ https://israelpalestinenews.org/israeli-torture-core-element... “ israel’s widespread use of torture is a core element of its genocide against the Palestinian people” 2. https://youtu.be/KjAmlit0yzY https://youtu.be/KjAmlit0yzY “israel’s history of sexual assaults on Palestinian women” 3. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372963626_Beyond_Male_Israeli_Soldiers_Palestinian_Women_Rape_and_War_Israeli_State_Sexual_Violence_against_Palestinians https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372963626_Beyond_Ma... “ Beyond Male Israeli Soldiers, Palestinian Women, Rape, and War: israeli State Sexual Violence against Palestinians” 4. https://thejerusalemfund.org/2018/08/sexual-harassment-and-violence/ https://thejerusalemfund.org/2018/08/sexual-harassment-and-v... “ Sexual Harassment and Violence against Palestinian Women in israeli Prisons” 5. https://zeteo.com/p/palestinian-women-raped-by-israeli https://zeteo.com/p/palestinian-women-raped-by-israeli “ Palestinian Women 'Raped by israeli Soldiers.' Silence From Western Media” 6. https://www.academia.edu/43471289/Israeli_Settler_Colonialism_in_Context_Celebrating_Palestinian_Death_and_Normalizing_Gender_and_Sexual_Violence https://www.academia.edu/43471289/Israeli_Settler_Colonialis... “ israeli Settler Colonialism in Context: Celebrating (Palestinian) Death and Normalizing Gender and Sexual Violence”