After resigning in protest of the Likud government, and going missing for the better part of a dramatic day; Israel’s Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was arrested, and charged with “fraud and breach of trust, abuse of her office, obstruction of justice, and unlawful disclosure of material.” She was the top legal official for the IDF, and freely admits to leaking the video to expose the serious nature of the crimes she was investigating, about Palestinian prisoners being tortured at the notorious Sde Teiman Camp. But good deeds are harshly punished these days, for all the wrong reasons. In this case, she was arrested for showing up the absurdity of the Likud “hasbara” campaign to spin global public opinion in Israel’s favor.
The literal meaning of the Hebrew word “hasbara” is “explanation,” or “means of persuasion.” But under Netanyahu’s Likud government it has evolved to mean an effective PR strategy to whitewash, cover up; and deny the reality of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, torture of prisoners, and similar abuses in the West Bank. Hasbara is a propaganda campaign, complete with carefully managed tours for journalists to hide the ugly negative and accentuate the positive. Likud Party recruitment of young US and European Jews has deployed carefully managed tours and fantasy camps, to whitewash these crimes.
Gen. Tomer-Ysrushalmi resigned because her decision to investigate the IDF’s abuses at Sde Teiman brought an “incitement campaign,” orchestrated by Likud. She said upon resigning, “This campaign continues to this very day and causes deep and serious harm to the IDF, to its image, and to the resilience of IDF soldiers and their commanders.” Haaretz columnist Noa Limone summarized saying, “The sin of the military advocate general is not the attack on the international image of Israeli soldiers, but rather the attack on the rule of law in the attempt to cover up the investigation of the leak. But even in this case a far greater attack against the rule of law is coming, as usual, from the right.” Sound familiar?
Or by check:
Juan Cole
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Sde Teiman is an Israeli military base in the Negev Desert near Gaza. After the Knesset passed the Unlawful Combatants Law in December 2023, it was converted into a detention camp and torture chamber. Detainees are held there without legal representation or charges, with many not knowing why they were detained. This leaves the impression that some were swept up in a dragnet, and arbitrarily imprisoned for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Detainees have been subjected to various forms of “medieval” torture. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem issued a report on August 5, 2024, alleging that, “Palestinians currently in Israeli prisons are being subjected to harsh arbitrary violence on a frequent basis, sexual assault, humiliation and degradation, deliberate starvation, forced lack of hygiene, sleep deprivation, restriction and punishment of religious worship, confiscation of all group and personal belongings, and denial of adequate medical care.” They report that more than a dozen other Israeli military bases and prisons were similarly converted into torture chambers after October 7.
B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak characterized Sde Teiman as “the tip of the iceberg,” as, “thousands of Palestinians are being held in inhuman conditions and subjected to relentless abuse. Some do not know why they were arrested; many will be released without trial. This is the definition of a torture camp: a place that once you enter – no matter who you are or why you were arrested – you will be subjected to severe, deliberate, relentless pain and suffering.” The detention and torture of healthcare workers has exacerbated the ongoing health crisis in Gaza.
Last year, the Iranian Foreign Minister Nasser Kanani compared the torture practices at Sde Teiman to the American abuses at Abu Ghrayb and Guantanamo Bay. Israel has also subjected Palestinian healthcare workers to torture during baseless detainment. Human Rights Watch reported that doctors, nurses and paramedics testified about, “ . . . their mistreatment in Israeli custody, including humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing and blindfolding, and denial of medical care. They also reported torture, including rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces, denial of medical care, and poor detention conditions for the general detainee population.” In November-December 2023, Palestinian healthcare workers were, “detained without charge for between seven days and five months. Six were detained at work following Israeli sieges of hospitals or during hospital evacuations, which had been coordinated with the Israeli military. None of the healthcare workers said they were ever informed of the reason for their detention or charged with an offense.” Needless to say, all of these abuses are gross violations of International Law, and fuel the charges against Netanyahu, and his ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich before the International Criminal Court. Technically, they are global fugitives.
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These examples of Israel behavior contravene Article 3 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which states, “[p]ersons taking no active part in the hostilities … shall in all circumstances be treated humanely.” They expressly forbid, “Cruel treatment and torture” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” It also states that, wounded combatants and prisoners “shall be … cared for.” Israel also systematically and flagrantly violates Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits individual forcible transfers within the occupied territory as well as deportations of civilians from occupied territory to the occupying power’s territory, regardless of the motive.”
“Sde Teiman,” Digital, Dream / Cartoonist v. 3/ Clip2Comic, 2024.
Gen. Tomer-Yerushalmi’s objections are supported by the Israeli Military Police (MP), who arrested and detained nine Israeli soldiers (prison guards) in July 2024 from the Force 100 unit, serving as prison guards at Sde Teiman. They are, “suspected of gang raping and severely sexually torturing detainees.” They were arrested after a Palestinian prisoner was taken to the Soroka Medical Facility in Beersheba with severe injuries to his rectum and upper body from being sodomized with a tool. The prisoner was taken to the civilian hospital because he was unable to walk. This became a story because of the doctors and nurses felt a conscious, “mandatory reporter” obligation to speak out. The guards’ arrest elicited a violent right wing mob, which included MK’s from Likud, the Religious Zionist and Jewish Power parties, who tried to storm the prison to further abuse the prisoners, and attack the MP’s.
Informed Comment previously cited a report from Journalist Haggai Matar, who stated, “In essence, soldiers are in open rebellion for the right to rape prisoners, and more and more coalition politicians are joining them – from Likud, Jewish Power, and more.” The fallacy of her arrest is that the crimes at Sde Teiman were widely reported before she leaked the video, when the far-far right members of Netanyahu’s coalition “stormed the Bastille,” in attempt to free the arrested members of Force 100, and participate in the torture of Palestinian prisoners.
Novak of B’Tselem said, “The Israeli government has cynically exploited our collective trauma from the horrors of 7 October to translate Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir’s racist, violent agenda into action. This government has driven us to an all-time moral low, proving again its utter disregard for human lives – of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, of Israelis and Palestinians living through ongoing war, and of the Palestinians held in torture camps.”
There are numerous, inescapable parallels interlocking the unlawful reigns of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and convicted felon Donald Trump. Today, the most striking common thread is that both treat the leaks as being more horrible than the heinous crimes revealed therein. Now there are parallel “witch hunts” taking place in the Justice Departments of both Israel and the US, with similar dynamics. Haaretz columnist Yossi Verter said of Netanyahu, “The longer he stays in power, the more Netanyahu acts like a tyrannical, reckless and malicious emperor who sees the country and its institutions as family property.” Verter’s words also aptly describe Trump.
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