“Welcome to Hell”

Palestinians in Israel's prisons

“Welcome to Hell!” is supposedly how cynical Israeli guards greeted a new batch of Palestinians about to be confined in a military prison. It’s the title of a report just issued “on the abuse and inhumane treatment” of Palestinians held in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023.

In harrowing detail, the report describes “a network of camps dedicated to the abuse of inmates as a matter of policy. Facilities in which every inmate is deliberately subjected to harsh, relentless pain and suffering operate as de-facto torture camps.” It's based on testimonies from 55 of the thousands of Palestinians arrested during that time—from Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel itself.

“The testimonies reveal that all Palestinians currently held 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”

This report cannot be dismissed as an anti-Semitic diatribe written by naive, Woke outsiders. It was issued by “Btselem,” the respected Israeli human rights organization.

I urge you to read at least the summary, which describes the outrageous treatment of both men and women prisoners. Most were ultimately released due to a lack of charges. Thousands more—no one knows how many—are still being held.

For those who would retort—” What about the Hamas atrocities of October 7?” We would reply: We are told over and over that Israel is something special--a nation of Western values, the only democracy in the Middle East. Yet there are multiple signs that—as far as the millions of Palestinians are concerned—Israel is descending to the same moral depths as its regional enemies.

Indeed, the Btselem report gives the lie to Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, in which he claimed, referring to Iran, that “This is not a clash of civilizations. It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization.”

Netanyahu went on to describe Israel’s enemies as, among other things, “rapists.” This is during the same time that right-wing Israeli mobs attacked—and then invaded two Israeli army facilities, where authorities dared to arrest Israeli soldiers suspected of torturing and sodomizing (italics added) a Palestinian prisoner. Hundreds of radical Israelis took part in those violent demonstrations, including uniformed Israeli soldiers and three legislators from the ruling coalition.

(One wonders how those protests would have been handled if the protestors had been Israeli Arabs)

To Netanyahu’s point, we might also ask where on the scale of civilized values we should place Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank. After October 7, some counseled Israel to act with restraint—as Israeli leaders did after the killing of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympic Games in 1972. “Take your time,” Israeli leaders were told, “and dispatch the Mossad to hunt down the key perpetrators wherever they might be. Don’t fall into the trap of launching a full-scale military invasion of Gaza. Don’t repeat the mistake the United States made by invading Afghanistan and then Iraq after 9/11.”

Instead, Netanyahu seems to have adopted both policies: hunting down Hamas ringleaders wherever they may be—but also slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza.

At the same time, out of the spotlight, Israel’s so-called “settlers” continue their rampage on the West Bank…with the support of the Israeli Army. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed, many more driven from their homes and lands. Due to other Israeli actions, their economy is a shambles.

Meanwhile, the U.S. the world’s most powerful nation, is dispatching additional troops, planes, and warships to the Middle East—a warning to the government of Iran not to retaliate.

Not to retaliate for what? For Israel’s assassination of one of the top Hamas leaders in a supposedly safe house in Iran just after he met with the new President of Iran.

At the same time, one of Iran’s major allies, a leader of Hezbollah, was assassinated by Israel in a Lebanon suburb.

Just imagine if Iran or Putin had carried out two similar high-level assassinations somewhere in Europe! Never mind the United States.

So, what are the Iranians supposed to do? Make angry speeches, shake their fists, and do nothing?

That sounds more like U.S. policy these days.

What is astonishing is that the U.S. is —once again— coming to Israel’s rescue even though these two assassinations dealt a major diplomatic blow to President Biden’s hopes of brokering a cease-fire in Gaza.  In fact, according to most accounts inside and outside Israel, it is Netanyahu who has been blocking a ceasefire.

As a New York Times analysis puts it, the Israeli Prime Minister has gone “rogue.” He’s thumbed his nose at his American protectors, even as he scorns the views of his fellow Israelis.

And so far, he’s gotten away with it. He’s desperately holding on to office by giving power to the most extreme elements of the settlers and the religious right, who oppose a Palestinian state of any kind.

In the process, Netanyahu is ripping his country apart while also turning it into a pariah state.

He will continue to do so—as long as the American President limits himself to wringing his hands and voicing his dismay—yet keeps furnishing the military support that allows Netanyahu to do whatever the hell he wants.