Sde Teiman riots plunge Israel into a new abyss

Israeli protesters outside the Sde Teiman military base, where nine soldiers were accused of raping a Palestinian prisoner. AFP

The detention camp at Sde Teiman military base in the Negev Desert has been called “Israel’s Guantanamo”. For months, stories of abuses taking place in the facility – each more appalling than the last – against Palestinian prisoners have been met with flat denials or stony silence from Israeli authorities.

But on Monday, Israeli military police moved to detain nine reservists at the camp accused of gang-raping a Palestinian prisoner. An investigation into the alleged rape was ordered after the prisoner was hospitalised with injuries so severe he was left unable to walk. There has been growing pressure from the international community for Israel to take reports of mass violations against Palestinians seriously; the UK is said to be ready to announce a suspension of arms sales to the country.

The accused soldiers at Sde Teiman refused to go quietly. Several of their colleagues are even said to have pepper sprayed the military police officers who came to detain them. Shortly after they were moved to another base, Beit Lid, mobs of far-right protesters – many of them armed – forced entry into both bases, accompanied by several parliamentarians, demanding the military let the accused soldiers go. One MP, Tally Gotliv of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, addressed the crowd warmly at Beit Lid as she stood flanked by masked protesters carrying assault rifles.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called the riots a threat to Israel’s very existence and said the lawmakers who participated “are done with the rule of law”.

“We are not on the brink of the abyss,” Mr Lapid warned. “We are in the abyss.”

The rape of a prisoner, even one suspected to belong to a terrorist organisation, is among the gravest abuses a military can commit. The violation is compounded, in this instance, by the suggestion that so many soldiers were involved.

Perhaps worst of all, however, is the growing clarity that this case appears to be the tip of the iceberg. Whistleblowers, lawyers, activists and Palestinian former prisoners have spoken in recent weeks of witnessing torture, extreme medical malpractice (including depriving injured prisoners of painkillers during surgery) and other instances of rape at Sde Teiman, as well as other military-run prisons.

One of the whistleblowers who spoke out about the situation at Sde Teiman earlier this year, a medical professional, told reporters they were particularly struck by how quickly detainees at the camp are dehumanised. The Gazan prisoners, the whistleblower said, are called only by their serial numbers, rather than their names.

That several members of Israel’s legislature have called for the soldiers accused of rape to be released, seemingly oblivious to the severity of the crime they are accused of committing, ought to be deeply troubling for Israel and its allies. It suggests the abuse of Palestinians, many prisoners of war, held by Israel’s military has become both institutionalised and normalised to an alarming degree. If Israel’s toxic political environment renders investigating just one case of abuse so difficult, what hope is there that many others will be investigated – let alone prosecuted?

Even such prosecutions, it must be said, would amount to partial justice, at best. The system through which Israel detains thousands of Palestinians (more than 9,000 since the start of this latest cycle of violence since last October) is itself grossly unjust – the product of laws grown out of an illegal occupation. Prolonged detention without charge or access to legal counsel is par for the course. The rule of law, any Palestinian subjected to these conditions might argue, has been absent for quite some time. It is high time to tackle these injustices, along with the need to end the occupation from which they stem.