In supporting Israeli army rapists, right-wing protesters signal the coming Israeli civil war
A recent speech in support of Israeli soldiers detained for torturing and raping Palestinian detainees shows the Israeli right not only wants to escalate the ongoing genocide against Palestinians but also threatens bloodshed between Israeli Jews.
On Monday, July 29, Israeli Military Police detained several Israeli reserve soldiers serving at the Sde Teiman base. The soldiers are suspected of torturing and raping a Palestinian detainee. Outrage ensued among prominent figures on the Israeli right, and protesters rushed to the southern base. The following speech by Eliyahu Yosian is a clear indication of the rift between the Israeli right-wing and Israeli liberal Zionists and the real prospect of future internecine bloodshed within Jewish Israeli society.
Born in Iran, Eliyahu Yosian immigrated to Israel in 2003 and served in the IDF Intelligence Corps. He conducts Iran-focused research at the Misgav Institute for Zionist Strategy in Jerusalem. The institute, headed by Netanyahu’s confidant and former National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, issued an influential position paper in October 2023, advocating for the removal of Palestinians from Gaza. Yosian is also a member of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, a hawkish think tank led by Amir Avivi, a former IDF brigadier general and another advocate for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
Yosian has gained cult status and notoriety since October 7 through his dramatic genocidal incitement against Palestinians and toxic invective towards liberal Zionists. He often appears on Israeli right-wing Channel 14, where he’s not alone in preaching the Gaza genocide gospel. Yosian has repeatedly stated that Israel should have “killed 50,000 Gazans” immediately following the October 7 attack. He reiterates that “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, just 2.5 million terrorists.” Yosian rejects “foreign liberal Westernized” values, and wants to replace them with (his version of) Jewish morality. Yosian regularly tweets his provocative opinions.
Yosian’s speeches and monologues are delivered with a thick Persian accent, which lends the scene a somewhat surreal tone. He knows how to incite his audience with rhetorical questions of the “Am I right?” type. Yosian tends to repeat certain mantras, especially against liberal elites. The latter are referred to as “sushi eaters”, and Yosian rejects “sushi culture in the Middle East, where people eat hummus”.
Yesterday’s speech outside the Sde Teiman camp, warmly endorsed by his crowd, seems to mark an escalation in Yosian’s rhetoric. While his call to action only involves disobedience — refusal to continue serving, similar to threats made by anti-Netanyahu protesters in view of the judicial reform last year — his speech is much more menacing. Furthermore, the speech was delivered against the backdrop of real violence between Israeli right-wingers and soldiers trying to prevent them from breaking into Sde Teiman and another military base where the suspects were being held.
By referring to Israel’s legal establishment as ‘Hellenized’ Jews, he frames his opponents as the equivalent of those whom Judah Maccabee and his adherents fought and sometimes killed during the Maccabean Revolt circa 160 BCE. That uprising was aimed not just at King Antiochus of the Hellenistic Syrian kingdom but also at ‘Hellenized’ Jews, who had adopted the Hellenistic way of life.
Yosian mentions two archenemies by name. The first is Professor Asa Kasher, a philosopher from Tel Aviv University who authored the IDF Code of Ethics (insert your sarcastic joke here). Kasher has often praised Israel’s conduct in war, but rejects arbitrary brutalities committed by individual soldiers and officers. The second is the former President of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, the shining light of liberal Israeli jurisprudence. Barak, along with his predecessor Meir Shamgar, have granted a legal stamp of approval to Israel’s apartheid system. Several of his key rulings authorized severe violations of international law, with carefully crafted lip service to democratic values, imposing only minor restrictions on the Israeli government and creating a façade of due legal process. In contrast, Barak’s assertive rulings on civil rights within Israel and his overturning of several Knesset-enacted laws have made him a main target for the Israeli right-wing. The latter claim that Barak’s ‘judicial activism’ overrides the will of the people, as expressed by their elected members of parliament. They also regard the Israeli Supreme Court as a leftist bastion, simply for its reluctance to grant the Israeli right-wing carte blanche to do as it pleases in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Yosian’s speech introduces additional toxic terms against liberal Zionists. ‘Nevela ve-Treifa’, translated below as ‘villains and treifs’, refers to two types of animal carcasses that are not to be consumed by a proper Jew. Moreover, the Hebrew root of the word ‘Nevela’ is also the root of the word ‘Naval’, which means villain. This choice of words frames liberal Zionists as twin evils, repugnant non-kosher meat, villains, and non-Jews all at once.
Yosian’s message is clear. Not only does he wish to escalate Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians, but he also wants to destroy the thin democratic veneer of the Israeli state, which, to be sure, is a settler-colonial apartheid state rather than a liberal democracy. One can expect the rift within Jewish Israeli society to widen, and Israeli soldiers and officers will be forced to decide where their loyalty lies. Considering Yosian’s rhetoric against liberal Jewish Israelis, future bloodshed cannot be ruled out.