An Israeli soldier posted a picture of himself with a fetus
preserved in formalin. The image is believed to have been taken in Al
Basma IVF Centre, the largest fertility clinic in the Gaza Strip, where
4,000 embryos were destroyed in December 2023 [photo credit: @ytirawi]
Other crimes committed by the IDF include the wilful killing of
civilians by sniper fire, the rape and sexual abuse of male internees in
detention and the sexual humiliation of women, girls, men and boys. It
cites a culture of impunity that was encouraged by members of the
Israeli cabinet including the then National Security Minister Itamar
Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Both men spoke in
defence of five soldiers who were arrested after the rape of a male
detainee at the notorious Sde Teiman camp came to light. It quotes
Smotrich decrying the “terrible injustice” the soldiers were facing
while Ben-Gvir referred to them as Israel’s “best heroes.” The soldiers
were charged only with GBH while the physical evidence of the rape was
ignored.
When the matter was raised in the Knesset the report quotes the response of Likud’s Hanoch Milwidsky:
When asked if it was legitimate to “insert a stick into a
person’s rectum”, Milwidsky responded: “If he is a Nukhba [Hamas
militant], everything is legitimate to do. Everything.”
Alex Hobson in a New Lines Magazine article
reflects on the degree to which both Trump and Netanyahu trade in
“humiliation entrepreneurship” which involves a transferral of their own
personal humiliations into shared national humiliations that demand the
humiliation of the other and justifies and exonerates the infliction of
extreme cruelty in so doing. In Trump’s case his humiliation was the
impeachments, his election loss and the numerous criminal cases brought
against him while for Netanyahu it was the 7 October attack. Hobson
writes:
The convergence of Netanyahu’s and Trump’s fantasies and
illusions represented a culminating moment in the merging of strategy
with the emotional currency of humiliation and outrage. The two leaders’
shared fantasy is that Israel, with U.S. support, can ethnically
cleanse Gaza through destructive vengeance for Al-Aqsa Flood and the
near-total devastation wrought by 16 months of bombing, which human
rights organizations have dubbed a genocide. Their shared illusion is
that the U.S. and Israel can, in tandem, exert their will over the
Middle East without any concern for the animosity, resentment and
resistance that their deeds and words stir.
Both men strive to project a ‘hard man’ masculinity. When Trump the
abuser of women talks about his launch of a global trade war he smoothly
incorporates language
associated with women and girls who survive abuse. “We have been abused
for a long time and we will be abused no longer” said the president
about tariffs he holds to be “unfair.”
In depicting Palestinians as Amalek
Netanyahu invoked the bible 1 Samuel 15:3: "Now go and smite Amalek,
and utterly destroy all that they have... slay both man and woman,
infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."
The UN report has a section on “Masculinity, nationalism and
militarization” that confirms Hobson’s thesis that humiliation is a
powerful weapon of war be it Ukraine, a world trade war or the genocide
of Gaza. That is true particularly when used against women and girls:
Women’s bodies and sexuality are often perceived as linked with
the dignity of the nation and other negative gender stereotyping, such
as the collective’s honour and emasculation. Several experts have noted
that allegations of sexual violence against Israeli women on 7 October
2023 have resulted in attempts to rebuild Israeli national masculinity
through aggression and in retaliation for the attacks carried out by the
military wing of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.
True to form - and stereotype - Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed
the report while labelling the UNHRC an “anti-Semitic, rotten,
terrorist supporting body… attacking Israel with false accusations
including unfounded allegations of sexual violence.”
The investigation conducted by the Commission of Enquiry is forensic
in its detail and took statements from multiple witnesses and victims.
You can find the full report here (warning the content is disturbing.)
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