Kamala Affirms Support For Biden's Israel Policy; Interview: Human Rights Group B'Tselem Documents Widespread Abuses of Palestinian Prisoners
TIMESTAMPS:
Intro (0:00)
Still Pro-Israel (6:47)
Widespread Abuse of Palestinians (33:51)
Interview with Sarit Michaeli (50:03)
Outro (1:44:41)
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Tonight, one of the most bizarre political spectacles I have ever seen in my life is that Kamala Harris continues to campaign for president and media figures and liberals continue to absolutely swoon for her despite the fact that she has not uttered a single word about anything that she believes about anything one of the most bizarre political spectacles I have ever seen in my life is that Kamala Harris continues to campaign for
It is the ultimate campaign based on nothing, believing that she can win by attracting enough votes of people whose brains are equally empty and do not need to hear anything that she actually believes about any substantive policy disputes.
Most amazingly, there seem to be very few, if there are any, corporate journalists who appear to even be slightly perturbed by any of this.
A presidential candidate who, three short months before the election, continues to refuse to do any interviews or issue any statements about what she believes about literally anything, let alone about the multiple domestic and foreign crises already pending.
Last night, however, Kamala Harris appeared to give a scripted speech in Michigan, and one of the first times that she expressed any genuine emotion during the campaign, other than grinning widely about her own good fortune, came when pro-Palestinian protesters, largely Arab and Muslim voters from that area, angry about the incessant bombing campaign of Gaza that have affected many of their families and killed many of their relatives, went to Kamala's event to protest the White House support And it's ongoing support, arming and financing of the Israeli war in Gaza.
Kamala, for the first time, showed real, visible anger over this, of all things, as she spewed scorn and contempt on the protesters, telling them that they should shut their mouth unless they want Trump to win.
Now all of this presents a major problem for many left liberals who have been lying to themselves and to their followers by trying to pretend that Kamala has different views than Biden when it comes to support for and financing of Israel, that she's somehow more sympathetic to the pro-Palestinian cause based on absolutely no evidence that she is or that she does.
And even in the face of a mountain of evidence that she's every bit as pro-Israel as Biden, or Josh Shapiro, or Tim Walz, and always has been.
In order to shield Kamala, though, from any anger over how she just treated pro-Palestinian and anti-war protesters, these left-wing liberal influencers began outright lying.
By insisting that Kamala said she's more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than claiming she is more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause of Biden.
And even by claiming, based on nothing, that Kamala said she was open to an arms embargo against Israel in order to force them to end the war.
That's what they claimed that Kamala had said.
Now, in a way, their lying actually performed a public service because they provoked the first ever substantive statement by anyone on behalf of Kamala Harris' campaign.
Namely, her top national security advisor and spokesman issued a clear and emphatic statement this morning.
That Kamala absolutely opposes an arms embargo on Israel and is fully devoted to defense of the Israeli state.
Now that is the first time anyone has shared her views on anything other than that one time when her campaign announced she repudiates multiple progressive views she ran on when seeking the Democratic nomination in 2020 such as single-payer health care and a ban on fracking and several other things.
And in doing so with this statement, she really gave the lie her campaign did to this left liberal fantasy to falsely depict her as willing to chart a different course than Biden or Trump when it comes to Israel generally and its war in Gaza specifically.
We still don't know what Kamala Harris thinks about the imminent war in the Middle East, the one we talked at length with last night with Professor John Mearsheimer, or what she would do in response to such a war, but at least this statement this morning finally extracted an admission that she fully supports Israel and is committed to their defense in this ongoing war in Gaza.
Then, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem issued a report this week documenting extreme and pervasive abuses in Israeli prisons where they have Palestinian detainees, including prisoners who were in prison since before October 7th, who never received any trial of any kind, who are from the West Bank and not Gaza, and whom even the Israeli government admits had nothing to do with the October 7th attack or with Hamas.
This new report comes as Israel is rocked by truly horrifying reports and even by video of the use of anal rape by IDF soldiers on detainees, again ones in prison with no trial, followed by the explicit defense of anal rape as a weapon of war or a weapon of vengeance and torture by members of the Israeli Knesset and prominent media figures alike.
We speak about this report as well as the broader sentiments in Israel regarding war and Palestinians that set the groundwork for these abuses with Sarit Mikhaili of B'Tselem.
Given the time difference in Israel, we taped the interview yesterday because our show airs in the middle of the night where Israel is and we found this discussion quite thoughtful and thought-provoking and believe you will.
As well.
Before we get to all of that, a few quick program notes.
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Although tonight is Thursday, there will be no after show tonight, simply because of this lengthy Pre-taped interview we did with the representative of the Israeli Human Rights Group.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
Kamala Harris, ever since she became the presumptive Democratic nominee, and now basically the confirmed Democratic nominee when Joe Biden was driven out of the race against his will, She has done a lot of things.
She has appeared at scripted rallies where she gives scripted speeches.
She has appeared at all sorts of fundraising events.
But the one thing she has not done is speak without a script.
She has not sat down, for example, for an interview with a journalist where a journalist could say to her, Vice President Harris, there's all of these crises that are brewing What is your view on them?
How would you handle these?
Would you do anything different than what Joe Biden did?
Would you continue the same just basic questions that every single presidential candidate in my lifetime has repeatedly had to answer?
And yet, so far, she has completely managed to avoid any of those questions.
And there's no pressure on her, basically, from her Democratic Party base to tell them, in exchange for their vote, anything that she actually believes.
Nor is there, more amazingly, I don't know if amazingly is the right word, revealingly, There is very little pressure from the corporate press to do so as well.
You would think journalists just pretending to be journalists and performing the journalistic function would want to show the public, hey, we at least are going to do the theater of being journalists, so we're going to observe that.
It's very strange that Kamala Harris won't say anything about what she believes three months out of the election, and we're going to start denouncing that and insisting that she—nope, there's almost none of that.
So last night, Kamala went to a rally in Detroit, Michigan.
And among the people who have noticed that she has thus far said nothing about anything meaningful are the numerous Muslim and Arab voters on whom the Democratic Party likely relies in order to win the state of Michigan, who have been very clear that they will not give their votes to the Democratic Party president to take it unless it demonstrates some kind of a commitment to reversing the U.S. funding and support for the Israeli bombing of Gaza.
And they went to Kamala Harris' rally last night to exercise their constitutional right to protest.
And obviously a lot of people are saying, why didn't they go to the Trump rally?
The reason is obvious.
It's the Biden-Harris administration that has been funding and arming and defending this war for the last 10 months.
Not the Trump campaign here.
He's been out of office since 2020.
Now, if you ask me, do I think that Donald Trump has any different views or would do anything differently than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris?
I would say no.
I said that last night when I was talking to Professor Mearsheimer and he explained the reasons why he didn't think so either.
The Israeli lobby is so powerful that the embedded dogma that we support Israel and everything they do not to support them, but arm them and finance them.
It's so embedded that it would almost require some kind of political war for a president to uproot it.
But these are the people who actually care about the war in Gaza, not the people who have been pretending for 10 months online to strike a radical pose or to profit from attracting more traffic by talking about the war in Gaza as if they're so angry about it.
And here's what people who actually believe what they were saying about the Gaza war would do.
They showed up at Kamala Harris' event to demand answers and here's how she treated them.
...against the climate crisis, and he intends to end the Affordable Care Act.
You know what?
If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that, otherwise I'm speaking.
I want you to notice something that I don't know if a lot of people notice, but there's this white woman in the lower left-hand corner.
She's to Kamala Harris' right.
I don't know if you're seeing the image the exact way I am.
So imagine Kamala Harris facing forward.
She's to Kamala Harris' right.
She's a white woman in the front row.
And she starts doing these signs with her hands like, kind of like, yeah, you said it.
These people are insane.
This is like the only thing for which Kamala Harris has ever demonstrated any passion.
It's like spewing contempt and hatred.
On the ability of pro-Palestinian protesters to be heard by dictatorially saying, how dare you?
I'm speaking now.
And these white women behind her are just swooning and going crazy.
Trump to win?
then say that otherwise I'm speaking anyway
that ovation goes on
I mean, even if you don't care about the Palestinian cause, even if you don't care about the war in Gaza that Biden and Harris have been funding and arming, if you don't care in the slightest, why would it arouse you to that extent?
Why would it excite you and animate you to swoon and give a sustained applause To a political leader for snapping at and scorning protesters who, whatever you think about them, are actually doing it with good faith because they're out of conviction and belief and they have every right to protest the political leaders who have been arming this war.
They're anti-war protesters.
And this is the Democratic Party.
They just swoon for these kind of personality things.
There was all these, you know, cultural kind of claims online about Kamala Harris doesn't take anything from anyone.
Now, she did say right before that, look, if you want to be heard, you can be heard, but not now, I'm speaking.
But then, when they continue to protest, as of course they should, that's what she did.
Obviously this is, before I get to the outbreak, I just want to show you something.
I watch people celebrating this online all day.
They're so excited.
And again, this is the first time I've seen any sort of anger or that kind of passion from Kamala Harris when she just told these leftist anti-war protesters who are Arab and Muslim to F off, basically, to shut their mouths because she's speaking.
And there is this passage in the novel Animal Farm, written by George Orwell in the mid-20th century, that essentially, for those of you who don't know, is a parody of how tyranny and authoritarianism functions.
And the basic story is that the novel begins when there's a farmer who rules over the animals on the farm, including pigs, treats them very reportedly, with a lot of repression.
And several of the pigs convince the other pigs and the other animals to overthrow that farmer and promise that once they do so, they will all be treated well.
They'll all be treated equally.
And instead what happens is the pigs start to take on the exact same behaviors as the farmer.
They start sleeping in human beds, they start eating food that the rest of the pigs don't eat.
It's an obvious metaphor for how tyranny works and how promises of equality are exploited in order to empower the leaders who promise them.
And in the novel, once the pigs took over, everybody was very happy at first, and then they started to notice that the pigs were started, the pigs in charge, including the pig named Napoleon, who was the The leader of the revolution who took over and began running things once they drove Farmer Jones away and his second-in-command, Squealer, they started noticing that they have all these privileges that most pigs don't have.
They get to eat all this fine food.
They even started wearing clothes, sleeping in beds with pillows and blankets while the pigs just continued to exist how they were.
And as a result, the pigs started getting agitated about that.
They started saying, wait a minute.
Why is this going on?
Why do you get these privileges and we don't?
And so in the novel, Squealer, who was the second in command to Napoleon of this new leadership, stood up and tried to address them about why it is that they should stop with their complaints.
And this is what the book said, quote, Day and night, we are watching over your welfare.
It is for your sake that we drink the milk and eat those apples.
Do you know what would happen if we pegs failed in our duty?
Farmer Jones would come back.
Yes, Jones would come back.
Surely, comrades, cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, surely there is no one among you who wants to see Farmer Jones come back.
Now, if there was one thing that the animals were completely certain of, it was that they did not want Farmer Jones back.
When it was put to them in this light, they had no more to say.
I mean, it is remarkable, remarkable how perfectly that tracks what Kamala Harris did in response to the Palestinian protest, where she was saying, look, I know you're agitated, but the only thing you need to know is that if you continue to question me, Farmer Jones is going to come back.
That bad man, Farmer Jones, Donald Trump, is going to come back.
And then the crowd just went wild.
It's like, yeah, we don't need to hear anything from you, Kamala, about your views.
All we need to know is that if you don't win and we don't hear from you, Farmer Jones is going to come back.
It's almost verbatim.
Obviously, Kamala Harris wasn't thinking about this.
She's not using Animal Farm as an instruction manual.
The reason it tracks so perfectly was because Orwell had observed how authoritarian and tyrannical leaders behave, what their mentality is, how they try and appease a restless mob that starts to notice their corruption.
And they do so by telling them that if they don't stop questioning the leadership, something worse or somebody worse is going to come back.
And that's exactly all the Democrats are running on.
If you don't just submit to us, get in line, shut up.
Farmer Jones will come back.
Now, obviously this creates a serious problem for a lot of people on the left, the left wing of the Democratic Party.
I mean, not the real left, but the left wing of the Democratic Party because they have spent, as we've gone over many times, nine or ten months screaming genocide, suggesting that people shouldn't even vote for President Biden because even though you should vote for the lesser of two evils with whom you don't agree, genocide is a bridge too far, all of that.
Gained so much benefit from that.
They got all this attention from doing that, from screaming genocide.
They were put on shows.
They attracted a huge amount of traffic to their shows and therefore all kinds of profit.
And basically they also improved their branding.
They kind of struck this radical cause.
And it was always totally predictable that they were going to, once the election approached, forget about all that stuff in Gaza.
They don't really care about it.
And even start lying on behalf of the Democrats.
I knew that was going to happen.
Not only I, but a lot of other people predicted that that was going to happen, but to watch them just lie so flagrantly...
In order to tell people, oh, I know Kamala Harris just keeps scoring on pro-Palestinian protesters, and that may not be great, but don't worry, she's actually really good on Palestinian issues.
Here's what Emma Vigeland did.
She's the co-host of a Democratic Party YouTube show called The Majority Report.
She tweeted this fabrication, quote, here is some better news from the New York Times.
Kamala Harris reportedly met with the co-founders of Uncommitted before the rally, and she indicated that she was open, she was open to an arms embargo toward Israel.
Then introduce those activists to members of her staff.
And then she said, these need to turn into commitments.
Now, that was completely invented.
Kamala Harris never suggested or indicated she was open to an arms embargo.
That is an outright lie.
It's a fabrication designed to deceive, confuse leftists who are like, wait a minute, why is this person that we were told was so great keeping score on a pro-Palestinian protest?
It looks a lot like The Democrats we were told not to like.
This doesn't look like anything different to us.
And so the Russians say, no, no, she did that, but she secretly on the side told them she's open to an arms embargo.
And here's what the New York Times article that was cited to make that claim actually said, quote, before her rally in Detroit, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke briefly with the co-founders of the Uncommitted National Movement.
I'd like to know how briefly.
She spoke briefly with them, which mobilized tens of thousands of voters in Michigan to withhold their vote from President Biden in the primary earlier this year over his support for Israel's war in Gaza.
Abbas Alawi and Lila El-Abed said they were in the welcoming line for Harris and Governor Walz, and communicated to Harris that they wanted to support her, but that voters wanted her to consider an arms embargo to immediately stop the carnage in the besieged enclave.
Harris listened to stories of people in Michigan who have dozens of family members killed in Gaza.
The leaders asked to meet with her about the embargo request and she indicated she was open to the meeting and introduced the two leaders to her staff.
Now, except for American liberals like that, everyone understood that Kamala Harris did not in any way intend to indicate that she was for something as polemical and controversial and radical in the American context as an arms embargo.
Imagine what would happen if Kamala Harris got into office and announced an embargo of sending more arms to Israel.
It's inconceivable.
It's so obvious she would never do that.
Nothing in her life, in her entire existence, slightly indicates that she would Pursue a policy at the expense of her own political interest for angering the Democratic Party and stoners, AIPAC, in order to stand on some principle?
When has she ever done that in her life?
Never.
She sat there for the last 10 months by Joe Biden's side and never uttered a peep of dissent as he gave Israel all those arms and all that money to fuel the war in Gaza as he isolated the world at the UN to protect Israel.
And although it's not common for vice presidents to express dissent to the president, she's free to.
And on an issue of conscience like this, if you actually think it's a genocide, she could have, and never has, and still hasn't, now that she herself is the presidential nominee and not the vice presidential nominee.
And because there was this little rustle of lies coming from Left liberals like the one we just showed you fabricating the claim that Kamala Harris said she was open to an arms embargo.
We finally, after all this time, got a definitive concrete statement from Kamala Harris' team about one belief that she has on one issue.
They were eager to immediately debunk any idea that Kamala Harris would in any way pursue a different policy on Israel, let alone impose an arms embargo.
Here is what Phil Gordon, her National Security Advisor in the White House, tweeted today.
Quote, The Vice President has been clear she will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups.
She does not support an arms embargo on Israel.
She will continue to work to protect civilians in Gaza and to uphold international humanitarian law.
That's just an echoing of Biden's rhetoric and policy.
But in fact, since they're running a campaign where they don't comment on anything, the fact that that was the one thing they felt compelled to say, we don't support an arms embargo against Israel.
We would never deprive Israel of arms.
We're always going to send Israel the arms they want.
It shows you where their priorities are.
She heaps scorned on pro-Palestinian protesters and then immediately issued a statement saying how steadfast her devotion to Israel was.
I'll just happen by the way just in case there's any confusion about this this is how Everyone in the world except American liberals understood it.
Hear from Haritz today, quote, Kamala Harris reaffirms she's against an arms embargo on Israel after meeting with pro-Palestinian activists.
She said she will, quote, always work to ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists, or Iran-backed groups.
I believe there was a New York Times article that made that clear as well.
But in any event, it's all over the place because everyone can read English and understood that she was never saying she was open to an arms embargo.
And in case there was any attempt to try and lie about her record, her National Security Advisor came out today and for the first time put an actual view on the record that she would never deprive Israel of the weapons it demands from the United States.
Now, all of this is happening while this war in Gaza, what these people have been calling a genocide for 10 months.
And I think you certainly make a plausible case for that word.
I don't like to argue over semantics.
You explained many times why I view this as morally reprehensible, one of the worst humanitarian crises, one of the worst crimes against humanity, certainly in this century.
And it's still ongoing.
It hasn't been, it hasn't stopped.
Even though a lot of people who pretended to care so much about it have stopped talking about it as the election approaches.
From the New York Times today, at least 16 Palestinians killed, at least 16, in an Israeli strike near a Gaza school building.
And honestly, I didn't even know there were school buildings still standing in Gaza, but apparently there was, and the Israelis found one.
It was being used as a haven for refugees, of which most of the Gaza population are, since they've been all expelled and transferred and ordered to evacuate many, many areas many times on foot.
And so they're all refugees, basically, internally deplaced in that, what you can sort of call a society, though it's basically destroyed from the foundations up.
And of course Israel's justification, the Israeli military said that the attacks were intended to destroy Hamas command and control centers inside the school compounds.
The military claimed that it had taken steps to quote mitigate the risk of harming civilians.
Now, earlier this week, APAC succeeded in removing yet another member of Congress for insufficient support for Israel.
She's Cori Bush, the Democrat of Missouri of a couple months ago.
They also did the same to Jamal Bowman, the Democrat from New York.
They poured many millions of dollars into just removing any member of Congress who's insufficiently supportive of Israel.
They have a unique record.
And when Cori Bush was defeated, she gave a speech saying, look, in front of a lot of her black supporters, saying, look, let's be very clear about what happened here.
The reason this happened is because AIPAC rules our politics.
And she said, I'm coming for you, AIPAC.
I'm coming to tear down your kingdom.
And when Corinne Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, was asked by the media about the White House's views of those comments, here's what she said.
Following up on Cori Bush, she gave a speech last night after the results came in and she said, today PAC has spent heavily against her.
I'm coming to tear your kingdom down.
Does the president have an opinion on that statement?
So, look, the president has always been very clear and very recently after the assassination attempt of the last president about lowing rhetoric.
Right?
Lowing political rhetoric and the importance of doing that.
It is important that we be very mindful of what we say.
This kind of rhetoric is inflammatory and divisive and incredibly unhelpful.
And look, we're going to continue to condemn any type of political rhetoric in that way, in that vein.
And so it is important to be mindful in what we say and how we say it.
But we cannot have this type of inflammatory, divisive language in our political discourse.
Not now, not ever.
So Karine Jean-Pierre stands up and says, we're denouncing Cori Bush for what she said about AIPAC.
This is extremely unhealthy rhetoric.
We denounce it.
We oppose it.
And they use Karine Jean-Pierre to be the one who denounced Cori Bush because she's a good face for that.
Now, before the Biden administration began, Karine Jean-Pierre worked for the progressive group MoveOn.
And she had long been an outspoken critic of AIPAC, very harsh outspoken critic of AIPAC, before she was offered a job for $170,000 or whatever in the position of White House Press Secretary to come and defend AIPAC from Cori Bush.
Just a few years ago, right before the Biden administration started, she was an outspoken critic of AIPAC, exactly what Cori Bush was doing.
Here, someone dug up This is what Corinne Jean-Pierre wrote about AIPAC in 2019 when she worked for MoveOn and pushed the Democrats to skip their conference, skip AIPAC's conference.
Now she makes $180,000 a year to say the opposite.
Here's what Corinne Jean-Pierre said in 2019, quote, Unfortunately, AIPAC's policy and conference speaker choices aren't its only problem.
It's severely racist.
And Islamic phobic rhetoric has proved just as alarming.
The organization has become known for trafficking in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric while lifting up Islamic voices and attitudes.
That's what she said just three, four years ago about AIPAC.
No, I'm not naive.
I understand that when people get new jobs, they have to constrain what they believe.
They have to modify how they say things because the job of White House Press Secretary does require you to defend the White House's view.
But how somebody can just sell their soul like that so blatantly and flagrantly?
Think about how, honestly, think about how soulless you have to be to do what she just did.
Just four years ago, you were making your views of AIPAC very starkly clear.
In fact, condemning them more aggressively than Cori Bush did when she was defeated as a result of AIPAC's $15 million that they poured into that race to remove her from Congress.
Karine Jean-Pierre was saying essentially the same thing as Cori Bush was four years ago, but now to keep her job in the White House, to keep her place in mainstream political elevated circles, she's willing to not only say the exact opposite of what she actually thinks right to your face, she's willing to volunteer to be the face that the White House sends forward to attack Cori Bush.
For using inappropriate and dangerous rhetoric to condemn AIPAC?
I don't know how you do that.
I don't understand people who are capable of that.
It's not like if she left the White House she'd be unemployed.
She would have more job offers than ever.
She was doing fine before the White House.
Isn't there any limit on what people are willing to offer themselves up to do?
The cause for which they're willing to voluntarily serve?
The willingness to just renounce all your actual views and pretend that you have the opposite views and even denounce?
A black woman who was a member of Congress, still is, for saying exactly what you were saying four years ago just because you're willing to do anything for a paycheck, anything for a job in Washington.
These people have no souls.
I was going to say their souls are rotted.
They don't have any.
They're sociopaths.
That is what a sociopath will do.
Anything without limits for their own benefit and their own advancement.
And that's what you're seeing here.
But as I say, at least In all of this, we finally got an actual genuine emotion from Kamala Harris, hatred for people protesting the war in Israel.
And an actual believable statement about what Kamala Harris would do, which is she will always send arms and money to Israel to ensure that they can win whatever awards they want to start or pursue or have to fight against, quote, Iran and its Iranian-backed groups in that region, which to her means Hezbollah and Hamas at a minimum.
And so she's saying, at the very least, I'm going to continue Biden's support of Israel.
I might even go further than that.
that so there you have it.
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A scandal is starting to bubble up in Israel over the fact that there has been very credible reports and even videotaped evidence showing
the use of anal rape as a weapon used by by IDF soldiers on the Palestinian captives and detainees that they have disappeared into camps.
With no trial, no real due process.
These people aren't found guilty of anything.
They just pick them up, sweep them off the street.
A lot of them end up being released because the Israelis even admit that they were guilty of nothing.
Obviously, if they're releasing them, that's an admission that they're not hardened terrorists or anything.
A lot of them are there before October 7th.
Many of them are there not from Gaza, but from the West Bank.
So in my view, even if someone is guilty of a heinous crime, anally raping them in prison when they're already helpless and detained is a sick, demented, and degenerate thing to do.
It's obviously a war crime.
It's a crime against humanity.
And there is ample evidence that shows that not only is this occasionally being done in Israeli prisons, but it's being done systematically, deliberately, consciously by IDF soldiers who believe they have the right to annually rape detainees.
And as this scandal is building up, there are many people on mainstream Israeli television not denying that this happened, but saying, you know what, yes, it is happening and it should happen.
Because we have the right to do it.
These people deserve it.
I know it sounds like an exaggeration if you haven't seen the videos, but that really is what's happening.
Now, there's an Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, that is composed of Israeli citizens, both Jewish and Arab alike, and they've been a longtime human rights organization, a lot of credibility around the world.
They released a report this week entitled, Welcome to Hell.
The Israeli prison system has a network of torture camps and that term, welcome to hell, comes from what one of the IDF soldiers told a Palestinian detainee as soon as they arrived there.
I just want to give you a couple of passages from this report.
This report was Very comprehensively researched.
The evidence is confirmed.
They interviewed all kinds of Palestinian detainees, confirmed it with other sources.
And this is what they say.
Quote, this report is based on interviews Beth Salem conducted with prisoners as well as relatives of individuals who are still incarcerated.
All the witnesses, women and men, older or younger, from the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the state of Israel were released from prison after October 7th.
They were held in various military and civilian prisons, facilities in Israel and the West Bank.
So the fact that they were released after October 7th obviously is a mission that they weren't hardened terrorists and likely did nothing wrong with.
The Israelis would not have released them.
The report goes on, quote, "The testimonies were collected by B'Tselem field researchers, usually in person or over the phone in a handful of cases.
All the testimonies were given in Arabic and translated into Hebrew and then into English.
The testimonies were verified and cross-referenced against other testimonies and reliable reports.
Some witnesses wish to remain anonymous and their testimonies are being published without identifying details." The quotes appearing here are taken from some of the testimonies we collected as we prepared In some other cases they have been shortened for easier reading just before the war started.
The overall number of Palestinians incarcerated by Israel and classified as quote security prisoners was 5,192, about 1,300 of them held without trial.
Without trial, as, quote, administrative detainees, which means Israel can just put them with no trial in prison, not have to charge them.
They have the right under the law to keep them for six months, and then they just get to renew it every six months as long as they want with no limit.
In, quote, in early July 2024, there were 9,623 Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, almost 5,000 of whom were detained without trial, without being presented with the allegations against them, and without access to the right to defend themselves.
In the months since the war started, thousands more Palestinians have been arrested, held for varying periods of time, and released without charges.
Various testimonies revealed repeated use of sexual violence in varying degrees of severity by soldiers or prison guards against Palestinian detainees as an additional punitive measure.
The witnesses described blows to the genitals and other body parts of naked prisoners, the use of metal tools and batons to cause genital pain, the photographing of naked prisoners, penises being grabbed, and strip searches for the sake of humiliation and degradation.
The testimonies also revealed cases of gang sexual violence and assault committed by a group of prison guards or soldiers.
One particularly grave testimony quoted at length below reports the attempted anal rape of a Palestinian detainee by several prison guards.
Similar incidents were mentioned in other testimonies.
The denial of medical care and improper treatment of patients often led to horrific outcomes, causing long-term injuries.
One example can be found in the testimony of a prisoner held in the Sajid Time and Military Detention Facility whose leg had to be amputated as a result of injuries caused by sulter violence, harsh incarceration conditions, inadequate treatment, and indifference and negligence on the part of the facility's personnel.
Among the Israeli prison system's special units, the initial reaction force, IRF, known in Hebrew as Keter, featured prominently in the testimony given to B'Tselem.
Two witnesses referred to it as the, quote, death squad.
Let me just say, there's no security risk in these prisons at all.
If you see any video of it, it's just video of the prisoners and how they're kept in shock and they're bound, they're stripped, they're lying on the floor.
None of this is being done for security reasons.
You don't have to anally rape prisoners for security reasons or beat them in the genitals.
The collection of testimonies in Betzelem's possession show the IRF has been heavily involved in the torture and physical, sexual, and mental abuse of prisoners since October 7.
Here is a video from the Israeli Channel 12 from this week, which is a mainstream Israeli channel, one of the most watched, and here it is that they're reporting on a video that surfaced that appears to show an anal rape by IDF soldiers on a Palestinian prisoner, and you can just see here as they lie on the ground the extraordinarily repressive and Humiliated and degraded state they're purposely kept in.
They're just lying on the floor with lights on, on their stomachs with their heads down, with their hands tied behind their backs.
So it's in Hebrew, but you can see they take one of the prisoners lying on the floor.
Multiple soldiers force him over.
So it's in Hebrew, but you can see they take one of the prisoners lying on the floor.
They, multiple soldiers force him over.
He has his hands behind his back.
And then under a shield, they quite clearly appear to be rectally raping the prisoner.
And a lot of reports have surfaced about this incident.
Several of the soldiers were actually detained and now you have Knesset members and other members of the far right in Israel actually going to the prison base to demand their release, the release of the IDF anal rapists.
And you have people on Israeli television who are explicitly Defending this.
I want to show you this one, and it's not obviously everybody in Israel defending it.
A lot of people in Israel are horrified and shocked, but there are a lot of people who are not, who are actually defending it, and they brought one of these people on to Israeli Channel 12, and here's what happened.
I'm going to just read the English subtitles, and for you, for those of you who are listening to the episode in podcast form, rather than watching.
I told my friends that I don't give a rat's ass about what they do to a guy like that.
What?
Is that the way you really think, someone said?
Unequivocally, yes.
Wait, wait, wait.
I'll explain.
Soldiers who are suspected in the criminal offense of rape of a cuffed prisoner, it doesn't interest you?
Does the morality of our soldiers not interest you?
No.
By the way, they're not soldiers.
In fact, they're not soldiers.
They're criminals.
Again, I don't give a rat's ass what they do to that Hamas man.
I always remember, first of all, the only thing that is a problem for me here is that it's not a regulated policy of the state to abuse detainees.
Because first of all, they deserve it, and it's great revenge that we need to give to them.
And secondly, maybe it will also serve us a little bit more as a deterrent.
That is, the movement, the other side, who we need to remember, Josh.
We need to remember it well, and never lose our focus or cool down.
These people tied 30 of our daughters on trees on October 7th, and they did those acts that are not less severe.
I don't even want to make a comparison.
Severe in an extreme way.
So first of all, they deserve it.
It's a very appropriate revenge.
It's just a shame that we don't do it in an institutionalized way as part of regulations for torture of prisoners because then the next guy who thinks about doing another October 7th will say, do you see what they're doing in Israel?
Don't even think about it.
So he said the only thing he regrets about the use of anal rape on detainees, who he says deserve it, even though they've not been convicted, is that The Israeli state should legalize it and regulate it as opposed to leaving it to the soldiers to do on their own.
It should be an official policy of the state to anally rape prisoners as a form of torture, deterrence, and revenge.
Anyone who says that is an absolute sick degenerate.
And of course they're calling for the legalization of classic war crimes.
And as I said, it's not like he's some weird guy that they invited on, some random guy.
He's a known television pundit.
But also, he's defending a policy that many IDF soldiers are also defending, and that right-wing members of the Knesset went to an Israeli military base to use physical force and violence to break in to try and free those Israeli soldiers who are charged with doing that.
Here is the State Department spokesman, Matt Miller, speaking of people who have Going back to Israel, Israeli media today released a video showing Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian detainee at Sedit Amen detention camp.
The footage was very disturbing.
I know you have commented on the reports about this detention center before, but we have now We now have a new evidence, which is video.
Have you seen that video, and do you have anything to say on that, and also the reports of, you know, rape in Israeli prisons?
So, we have seen the video, and reports of sexual abuse of detainees are horrific.
They ought to be investigated fully by the government of Israel, by the IDF.
Prisoners need to be treated, prisoners' human rights need to be respected in all cases.
And when there are alleged violations, the government of Israel needs to take steps to investigate those who are alleged to have committed abuses and, if appropriate, hold them accountable.
And it is appropriate that the IDF, in this case, has announced an investigation, has arrested a number of people.
Um, who are alleged to have been involved, and, um, I won't speak to the outcome of that investigation, but it ought to proceed swiftly, and if they are determined to be, uh, in violation of criminal laws or violations of the IDF's Code of Conduct, then of course they ought to be held accountable.
And, actually, this is not the first rape incident we have been hearing about.
The Israeli prisons and Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, on Monday released a report Saying that said it's a man is only tip of the iceberg and that, you know, Israeli detention centers turned into a network of torture camps for Palestinian So I would have to look at what the specific independent investigation people are calling for and pass judgment on the merits.
So, I know Israelis are investigating this, but would you support an independent investigation into those allegations?
So I would have to look at what the specific independent investigation people are calling for and pass judgment on the merits.
But look, there ought to be zero tolerance for sexual abuse, rape of any detainee, period.
That's a fundamental belief of the United States, and if there are detainees who have been abused, or detainees who have been sexually assaulted or raped, the government of Israel and the IDF need to fully investigate Just a final one on that.
hold anyone responsible accountable to the full extent of the law.
Just a final one on that.
What is your reaction to that Israelis, including politicians and lawmakers, protested actually the arrest of Israeli soldiers who are suspected of abuse and rape?
We have also seen comments from Israeli lawmakers trying to justify the rape of Palestinians.
Have you seen those remarks?
So obviously, with respect to the last question, there is no justification for rape of anyone.
As I said, there must be.
Now, first of all, just compare, if you will, the endless global rape.
Reaction to claims of rape and the use of rape by Hamas on October 7th.
It just went on and on and on.
Sheryl Sandberg, the billionaire from Facebook, produced a massive video about it.
All kinds of celebrities came forward.
The media repeatedly covered it forever.
Even though the evidence of it has always been in doubt in terms of the scope of it or how much it happened.
The New York Times published an article that they had to clarify or correct in several important instances when purporting to corroborate those claims.
But leave that aside.
Look at the reaction to it.
And all you can really get from the U.S.
government is we don't support this.
We think it should be investigated.
Do you think the Israeli government, having spent the last 10 months openly Mocking the Biden administration, openly defying everything that they've said, making very clear that the U.S. government will continue to fund them and arm them.
They will not listen to a single thing the United States cares about or wants, that the Israelis will do whatever they want, the U.S. will continue to fund them.
Do you think they care in the slightest about what someone like this is getting up and saying, we expect the Israelis to investigate it and we hope that people will be held accountable?
It's stunning the amount of evidence that has emerged just in the last two weeks about how systemic this sexual assault, deliberate systemic use of it by Israeli soldiers in Palestinian prisons.
Now, the...
Israeli Human Rights Group, to which the journalists there referred, is the same one that I referred to earlier, which is the report of B'Tselem, this week that they released, called Welcome to Hell.
And one of the international coordinators and spokespeople of that group, Sarit Mikhali, joined me yesterday for an interview, not only about this report, but about just the broader political and moral and emotional sentiments that have emerged in Israel since October 7th.
Whether those are continuing to go to an increasingly dark place or starting to be pulled back and restrained, what the Israelis think about these reports and the prospects of Major escalation, potentially, with Iran and other groups that the U.S.
is on the brink of escalating into.
She's an Israeli human rights investigator, but she's also an Israeli citizen.
And this group and she vehemently condemn October 7th.
They have nothing to do with Hamas, no affection for Hamas at all.
But there are also Israelis who are, just like a lot of Americans were during the World War on Terror, deeply ashamed and horrified and angry by what their government is doing.
And the way in which is just a complete, direct betrayal and contradiction of all the values they thought that country stood for.
So I sat down with her yesterday for what I hope you will agree was a really interesting and informative interview.
Here it is.
Sarit, thank you so much for taking the time in and joining us today.
It's great to speak with you.
Absolutely.
Okay, so as you probably don't need me to tell you, anytime a group issues a report documenting abuses by the Israeli government or in any way criticizes Israel, they're immediately accused of sort of being on Hamas's side, or maybe you're funded by Iran or Qatar, or you're a group of terrorist sympathizers.
Especially we hear that in the West from people not familiar with the groups they're talking about.
So can you describe, before we get into the report, a little bit about Betsalem and what its composition is, who funds it, what its background is?
Yes, absolutely.
B'Tselem is an Israeli human rights organization, Israeli in the sense that we're part of Israel's civil society and we've been around since 1989, looking primarily at the responsibility of Israel for the violation of the rights of Palestinians.
But we are a staff that's made up of both Israelis and Palestinians, all of them united in our support for the universal principles of human rights that primarily focus on
Doing field research, field investigations, researching and uncovering a whole range of topics and then doing advocacy both in Israel and internationally in order to change this reality.
And just to be clear... Oh, sorry about that.
Go ahead.
A bit more, yeah.
So, I mean, a bit more about B'Tselem's funding, about B'Tselem's background.
B'Tselem stems from, as I said, from Israel's civil society, and we are quite similar to most other Israeli human rights organizations in the sense that we're funded primarily by institutional donors.
Many of them are foreign and very supportive governments of democracies in the West.
We are, you know, we come from this background of liberal Israeli thought and politics that used to be quite prevalent when we were established in the 80s and today I would say when the dominant discourse in our society is very much
A right-wing, I would even say a far-right discourse now we're considered a far more extreme and far more minority than we have been.
But I still also think it's a base of support from thousands, tens of thousands of Israelis who were not a membership organization, so they don't pay membership dues, but they send us small donations, they send us supportive emails, they share our values.
Those Israelis are Israeli citizens are also Israeli Jews and also Palestinian citizens of Israel.
So I think over the years we've Gain the reputation of an organization that is Willing to tell the truth, exposes wrongs, treats or focuses primarily on our own government, on our own country's violations, and overall is absolutely committed to the truth and to facts.
And I think, as I said, overall, I think certainly internationally, people trust us.
Inside Israel, We're viewed by many Israelis as probably the same things you just described, and by other Israelis as maybe naive, but some would call us terror sympathizers, some would call us self-hating Jews, and some would call us naive.
But many people still understand that within a country that claims it's a democracy, we would argue very much against this self-identification.
There has to be
Self-critical in human rights reporting and maybe one final thing in recent years but Salem has begun to Describe the situation on the ground throughout our region between the river and the sea as an apartheid regime this I'm sure you Would not be surprised has not made us a more popular within our own society But I think that in the last year or so and certainly in the last few months More and more Israelis are beginning to cotton on to this reality of apartheid
Yeah, and I actually want to get to that in just a little bit, the reasons for that position.
And also, I always think it's so notable how many prominent Israelis, including former defense ministers and members of the intelligence services, including Assad, have also expressed that view, even though here in the West it's characterized as some sort of taboo view to say that Israel is similar to an apartheid state.
I hate to even ask, but just kind of leave this to quickly dispense with this.
You are a human rights organization, and when it came to the attack by Hamas on October 7th and a lot of the barbarism and savagery that was committed inside Israel on that day, both in the report that I want to talk to you about, but also in general, the position of your group has been to condemn a lot of those acts as barbaric violations of human rights as well.
Is that true?
Absolutely.
We were absolutely shocked, but not just morally shocked.
We also felt the need both to say that this kind of treatment of human beings just erases humanity, but also that it's a crime.
So it's not just a moral abomination, it's also a criminal act.
And B'Tselem was supportive of the recent announcement by the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court that it wishes I'm not trying to create any sort of balance in this situation.
I certainly think the situation isn't balanced or symmetrical but I think it's important to stick to human rights concepts and to this Sacred notion that human beings and that civilians have to be protected, that you cannot attack civilians, no matter what the circumstances are.
And in fact, it also, I think, informs everything we say and do.
The recent report of B'Tselem issued on Palestinian prisoners and the way they're mistreated by Israel.
Again, people who are absolutely hated by many Israelis.
But this basic concept of human rights, human dignity, the way that One of the things that I've noticed is, and I used to notice this back when I was talking about abuses by the U.S.
government in relation to the war on terror, torture and rendition and kidnapping and due process-free imprisonment, a lot of the things the Israeli government is now doing, That people would often say, oh, these are terrorists.
They sort of deserve it.
They don't deserve basic considerations.
Or even, certainly in the Israeli context, when I talk about the work you've done and the documentation of abuse of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention camps, the argument is often made, well, look, in war, anything is expected, but also even everything is justified.
And my question that I always have for people who have that view Is it back to your view, namely that anything and everything is justified in the name of war when you're fighting a kind of enemy that you regard as existential or threatening?
Even up into including, say, anal rape, as things we've been hearing have been occurring in Israeli prisons to Palestinian detainees.
On what basis, then, do you condemn the acts of Hamas on October 7th?
In other words, if you take the view that, look, in war, everything and anything goes, and that's just the way it is, and we can't pretend that there are any limitations, what basis do you have, then, for condemning what Hamas did on October 7th?
I'm curious as to whether that question is confronted or addressed in Israeli discourse, and if so, how is that reconciled?
Well, I think I should also say in the interest of describing the reality in this country fairly, that many Israelis, but not the majority probably, are absolutely mortified and shocked by the things that have emerged recently.
The news, the stories, the probably quite realistic information that has emerged about the treatment of Palestinian detainees by Israeli soldiers and by the system so it's not 100% of the population but I should say and I again I think it's it's we should be honest about the status of our society that many many Israelis have
At the very least, express the lack of interest or carelessness about this kind of totally unacceptable treatment of prisoners.
And certainly the human rights argument is going to be the very basic thing of regardless of what a person has done, there are certain rules that we have to adhere to.
Also when it comes to the laws of warfare, it's not just about how you treat prisoners, it's also about how you act How you engage in warfare.
You cannot do anything.
The fact that your opponent, your enemy, is actually violating international law does not allow you to do the same thing.
Those are very basic principles.
That from our perspective have to be applied under all circumstances.
I understand that politically in our current environment there have been so many factors that have been at play to just push Israeli society further and further into what we have referred to as a moral abyss.
And this isn't just, you know, the horrors, the trauma of October 7th.
It's also quite a coordinated and a deliberate campaign on behalf of the Israeli far right to justify any sort of treatment of Palestinians.
In our report we show how, for example, when you're talking about the treatment of Palestinian prisoners now in Israeli detention, Seeds of what we are seeing at the moment on the ground where, as we described, the Israeli prison system has been turned into a network of torture camps for Palestinians since October 7th.
But the backdrop, the seeds, the precursors have been in public view since the establishment of this current government, since the appointment of Minister Itamar Benkvir as the Minister of National Security.
His vision, his racist vision, is an inspiration for this.
So I think beyond the totally horrific situation we've all gone through in this country, it's been 10 months now since October 7th.
The war, I'm not even comparing it, because the way we have ravaged, we have destroyed, killed 40,000 Gazans in our war of revenge is incomparable to what has been going on in Israel since. Gazans in our war of revenge is incomparable to what But there is this basis of trauma.
I just think it's very important to remember that there is also political campaigning.
The Israeli far right is not willing to, and has never been willing, to grant Palestinians any sort of human rights, regardless of what they have done.
And I should say, I mean, the human rights argument is very clear on the treatment of prisoners and certainly on torture.
Torture, which we argue and show is committed.
extensively in the Israeli system is prohibited no matter what the circumstances are under any circumstances.
It's totally prohibited.
So the basic human rights position is regardless of what a person has done, they could be guilty of the most horrific crimes, you're still not allowed to torture them.
But I'm setting aside this argument for a moment and talking about the The witnesses we interviewed are not Palestinian or are not Hamas suspects.
They're not Gazans who were arrested in Israel on October 7th or who were arrested With evidence that they're Hamas people.
The main, you know, I wouldn't, I don't want to use the word proof, but the indication of this is that Israel released them and because we spoke to them after they have been released.
So clearly Israel does not associate or does not claim that they have been perpetrating these types of crimes.
Yet still they have experienced the same kind of treatment that all other Palestinians are receiving in the Israeli prison system.
And in fact, we don't know, we don't have them.
The research to prove what is going on in places that house people that, Palestinians, that Israel actually has charged or has evidence against for being involved in October 7th.
We have spoken to Palestinians who describe the general conditions.
So I think from our perspective, I think, there are, A, there are these basic moral principles that We should all do all we can to adhere to.
And then there's the additional realistic, the fact that there's also a lot of lies told in order to essentially promote a project that I think a lot of Israelis don't agree with.
Even Israelis, and I would like to think that even Israelis who are absolutely furious and angry and wishing for revenge for October 7th, Don't want to live in a totalitarian, fascist country that is planned for us by Itamar Ben-Gurion and his people.
And with the approval of course of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
So I think that there are still That there's a need to understand that it's not just about punishing people who harmed us.
It's also about this massive additional political project.
And maybe just to add one other comment on this.
I think it's very much also related to the fact that from the perspective of the Israeli far right, the settlement lobby, etc.
The reason they are currently demanding no hostage deal, a continuation of the war indefinitely, is because they have their own agenda.
They want to continue to fully occupy Gaza and resettle it.
And what they're doing is, and what unfortunately many Israelis are doing, is getting carried away in this cycle, this crazy revenge process, which is actually planned to lead us in a very, very horrific direction which is actually planned to lead us in a very, very horrific direction to So I want to delve into the specific revelations in your report and how you went about documenting them.
I just want to stick for one more second on the kind of broader moral and ethical questions and the concept of human rights.
Because for me, when I look at what the, it's been the Israeli-Palestinian dynamic for quite a long time, well before October 7th, but it's certainly intensified and heightened, become more visible since then.
The analogy for me is the war on terror in the United States, because that was the first sort of focus of my journalistic career for the first 10 years.
Obviously the 9-11 attack was also a gigantic trauma psychologically and emotionally for Americans.
I was in Manhattan on that day.
I'll never forget it.
It was like it was yesterday.
And what ended up happening as a result... What's that?
I was living in New York at the time.
Oh yeah, so you were probably my neighbor.
Yeah, so you remember that well.
I think people have forgotten.
People didn't live through it especially, which every year becomes more and more people.
It's kind of shocking, but it's true that that's ancient history.
And that was such a trauma on Americans, on the United States.
It was targeted at New York and Washington, the centers of American power.
Over time, very, very quickly, the American government started doing things that I had always thought and been told were completely anathema to American values, to what the United States believes in, what the United States stands for, not just things like torture and kidnapping people off the streets of Europe and sending them to Syria or Egypt to be tortured and interrogated, all of which was true, but just the very idea that people were being accused and treated as guilty Without any trial.
So any attempt that you would kind of make to suggest that this was wrong, you would immediately be faced with the objection, look, these people are terrorists.
They deserve whatever they get.
And it turned out that the United States, in fact, had detained and imprisoned, both in Guantanamo and CIA black sites, a large number of people who ended up being innocent, guilty of nothing, and who were released, as you just said.
And I think the reason why that could happen, why people weren't open to the idea that they should object to this, is because there was a kind of dehumanization of Muslims in general.
Like, look, these are people who are savage.
These are people who really aren't human anymore.
They're kind of subhuman or more barbaric than human beings are and therefore don't deserve the protections of human rights because they've been stripped of their humanity.
One of the passages in your new report says, quote, the reality described in the prisoner's testimony can only be explained as the outcome of the ongoing dehumanization of the Palestinian collective in Israeli public perception.
Can you talk a little bit about how that has been accomplished and what you mean by dehumanization?
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think it's a key point because, as I said, what we're seeing in terms of the prison system and how the Israel prison system treats Palestinians is really just a precursor for additional developments.
Yes, I mean, I think When you think about the way Israelis engage with Palestinians, and especially with Gazans, for the past 20 years there's been ongoing conflict and war.
There's never been a moment of de-escalation.
There have been moments of lack of conflict, but
The way Gazans have been viewed and presented and certainly also I think the way all Palestinians are viewed and presented and possibly the way also most Israelis view Palestinians is as the enemy in the sense and again I mean there's some in the sense that the
The animosity or the context of the harm that Palestinians inflict on Israel is always divorced from any sort of history and past of what Israelis have done to Palestinians.
And I think it's very important.
And one of the things that we really need to think about is how, from our perspective, and when I say ours, I mean Israelis.
I grew up in this country.
And I spend my days working to try and change the future of this country, of this place.
But We're never told and we never accept and we never want to believe that Palestinians are acting as a result of things that we have done to them, right?
It's always much more convenient for us as Israelis to associate, to remember, to view Palestinian actions, Palestinian attacks, the way that Palestinians operate as things that are totally unrelated to that, right?
It's just because of some sort of murderous instinct that they have.
And this is a more and more common, I think, thing you will hear in Israeli society.
But actually, when we look at what has led to this Hamas attack and what Palestinians are doing, there are clear Israeli policies that have been very much related to this.
And this is not just, you know, what B'Tselem has said.
In fact, B'Tselem hasn't, you know, discussed
These issues at length, but what, but many Israelis, I think, are also beginning to understand that what Palestinians, that the kind of reality that has emerged in our relationship with Gaza, in fact, even some of the victims of October 7th have been talking quite, you know, movingly within Israeli society about the background, the context, what is going on because
Because clearly this context is relevant to trying to change the future between us and Gaza.
You know, these policies, the policy of separation between Gaza and the West Bank, the policy of completely creating two separate entities in order to prevent any sort of movement ahead in any sort of diplomatic process.
The creation of, you know, the turning of Gaza into one big prison, I think those policies are very much Just understood now by some Israelis, probably not by most Israelis, as very relevant.
But it's much easier, obviously, to think about Palestinians as just, and I think the Israeli far right wants us all to think about Palestinians as people who just act because they will never, you know, they'll always be, you know, this murderous instinct.
The media have been, you know, Essentially, controlled by the right or a lot of the media, I should say, because there are still some critical media outlets that are willing to speak out.
But the general broad media has relinquished its role as a watchdog.
Certainly other watchdogs like the State Attorney's Office, The Attorney General have relinquished their role in light of all of this dehumanizing language that we heard from the President of Israel on down, talking about Palestinians as human animals, essentially.
Now that's not to say that any, of course,
There's probably no need to even say that, that one doesn't have to to gloss over the horrors of October 7th in order to also then adopt this basic perspective of Sherrod Bettelheim, that the horrors that were inflicted upon us don't allow us to inflict horrors on Gazans, but I think that unfortunately the
Much of Israeli society has really just got carried away in this orgy of revenge.
Some people are slowly beginning now to get out or to begin to kind of recover from that.
Mold commentators, people in public life, influencers, but some people are still in it ten months after October 7th and this is
You know, it's an extremely depressing and very, very troubling prospect for the future of this society when it's really, a lot of it is just about constant revenge because there's always going to be, and what we're seeing also in Israel in recent weeks is kind of like, you know, constant rounds of assassinations and then responses and then various other killings
Where Israel will assassinate and then Hezbollah from the north will respond and kill Israeli civilians.
This seems to be unfortunately supported by many Israelis because this desire for revenge is so strong that they're willing to essentially risk A war that is expected to kill thousands of Israelis as well, in order to not de-escalate.
Because de-escalation is somehow seen as... Capitulation or appeasement.
Right.
Let me just ask you, because it's interesting what you say about this idea that the sort of October 7th has been deliberately divorced from the history and the context to try and suggest that it happened because Palestinians are somehow inherently just more violent or less civilized.
I know that whenever I pointed out to Americans or Westerners that prior to October 7th, the Israeli military had bombed Gaza and killed Gazans and people in the West Bank and killed people in the West Bank multiple times, numerous people.
Prior to October 7th, they're shocked to hear that because the propaganda framework has sort of been Oh, everything was perfect there, nobody was mistreating each other, they were all, you know, in a state of peace and then suddenly out of nowhere, simply because they're savages, Hamas decided to attack because that's how Palestinians are.
What I wanted to ask you, um, I don't know the best way to ask this, like the most kind of, the least provocative way, because I'm not asking to be provocative, I'm asking to really understand.
When I grew up, uh, and there was a kind of Jewish identity instilled within me, Primarily culturally, but also to some extent around religious sectors and the like.
Central to the Jewish identity, certainly politically, was the Holocaust and the Nazi atrocities against Jews.
And obviously I'm not in any way comparing the Israeli attack on Gaza to what was done to Jews in the Holocaust in terms of scale or magnitude or anything else like that.
But the way I was always taught to understood it was that the reason that was permitted to happen was precisely because there was an attempt to take a group of people based on their demographic characteristic, argue that because of who they were, they were sort of instilled with a certain set of immutable behaviors or beliefs or traits they were sort of instilled with a certain set of immutable behaviors or beliefs or traits that
And as a result, it was not only acceptable but necessary to strip away their humanity and to disregard standard conceptions of human rights when treating them or fighting against them because they were not actually human.
Again, I know it's very sensitive in the Israeli context to bring up this example.
I'm always kind of curious about that.
to be provocative as he said, because that's what shaped my understanding as growing up as a Jewish child and then adolescent and young adult was this idea that the worst thing that when atrocities really happen is when you start stripping people away of their humanity and insisting that normal human considerations don't apply to them. because that's what shaped my understanding as growing up as How is this understood in the Israeli context?
I'm always kind of curious about that.
Is the idea simply that the Holocaust isn't about the capacity for human evil, but simply specifically about anti-Semitism and therefore we have to just do everything to protect against anti-Semitism?
Or is there any sense that some of these ideas and conceptions about how Israelis speak about Gazans echo to some extent what was said about Jews, not just in the Holocaust, but throughout persecution campaigns in history? - Okay.
I mean, certainly what what we saw on October 7th is the is the and since then in Gaza is the result of ongoing escalations of a long term conflict of so much violence.
And those processes tend to push people further and further into more extreme situations.
So, and, you know, I never want to say that we've reached the worst situation because there's always further, you know, there's always more that a society can deteriorate.
But when you're looking at Israeli society, and again, I'm not actually, I'm not talking about Hamas and what they've done because I'm an Israeli and the main focus for me is what is going on in our own society.
I think it's a combination in Israel of many, or of historical processes.
It's not just about the one or the ongoing horrific trauma, it's also about a very long term process through which, as I said, political aspirations were promoted in order to reach a political or to reach to obtain political goals.
And now, so that's just a general, I think, comment on what led us here, what led us to this awful moment in time, in terms of historical analogies.
I think, and again, my perspective is that in Israel, there's always been a particular and a universal response to the Holocaust, to anti-Semitism, to Nazism.
I mean, you know, my family also experienced, on all sides and in probably every generation abroad, the impact of racism and of dehumanization.
As I grew up on the principle that what we had to go through, what our forefathers went through, should never be inflicted upon anyone.
But there's also this other way that people have responded in, you know, among the Jewish community and in Israel, which is that never again to us, right?
We'll make sure that this never happens to us.
I think, and this is, again, I think this is something that has been informing the Israeli consciousness for clearly decades since Israel was established.
I think what we are seeing these days is also the result of, you know, there's simply in these kinds of situations, in an apartheid situation, an apartheid situation is in an apartheid situation, an apartheid situation is inherently violent.
It's inherently dehumanizing.
It inherently creates a need to justify the The supremacy, right?
Jewish supremacy through different tools.
Some of them are dehumanizing others and others are also part of the other tools.
Some of the other tools used to justify an apartheid regime are also terrorism, accusations of terrorism.
I think that in our current society, Things have gone, I mean, it's very hard to see how we now stop going in this trajectory and go back to a place where there's more of an openness and a willingness to accept the humanity of anyone.
I mean, at B'Tselem we You're called B'Tselem.
B'Tselem, the name of the organization, is based around the notion of the godly image in all humans, right?
This notion of human dignity, of thinking about your own godly image, but also about your opponent's, your enemy's godly image.
It's very hard for me currently, in the way this society is going, to be optimistic about About moving away from this sort of dehumanization, unfortunately.
I think it would take a massive amount of work.
I think it would take, first and foremost, it would take an end to this war, this eternal war that is being perpetuated through Netanyahu's refusal to sign a hostage swap that would also include a ceasefire.
And this, you know, when you're in this kind of reality where war is just, it's just kind of like we've been promised, you know, the total victory.
But meanwhile, it's just a total war.
Those are the ingredients that all of these bad outcomes are made of, these terrible outcomes of dehumanizing the other.
I'm not sure this is completely coherent, but I think that, for me, really the key issue, as I said, I'm not optimistic about long term, but the key issue in the short term is a ceasefire and a hostage deal.
That's the key to at least Stopping this trajectory and maybe shifting to a slightly different trajectory.
Just a couple more quick questions.
If you don't mind, I want to respect your time.
I think just a lot of people, especially in the West, need to hear about this perspective as much as possible.
This report that you published is called Welcome to Hell the Israeli Prison System is a Network of Torture Camps and in the introduction to our discussion we're highlighting some of the specific findings and how you came up with them so we don't need to delve into those necessarily but what I do want to delve a little bit more into and I alluded this to earlier when I was talking about the war on terror and this belief that oh these are just terrorists do whatever you want to them and even if that were true that they were terrorists that still wouldn't be acceptable but Most of them.
In fact, none of the people at Guantanamo were ever actually convicted.
None of the people in the rendition or CIA black site system were ever charged with anything.
And a lot of them were acknowledged to have been innocent by the U.S.
government subsequent and even released for that reason.
Well, when it comes to Israeli detention camps and you talk about the abuses in them, of course, a lot of people are going to think, oh, well, these are Hamas terrorists who participated in and supported October 7th.
So who really cares?
We already talked about why that's not a good argument, even if that were true.
But talk a little bit about what this administrative detention system is, if there's any due process to it, the kind of people that you spoke with for this report.
Absolutely.
So I should say several things.
First of all, as I said earlier, regardless of what a person has done, they could have committed the most horrific crimes which they should be held accountable for.
You cannot torture them.
We cannot do this.
This is unacceptable.
But some of the people we interviewed were imprisoned before October 7th.
So clearly no one suspected them of being involved.
Some of the people are from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, not Gazans, and some are citizens of Israel.
Yet all were exposed to the same conditions and the same level of both physical violence but also humiliations and degradation and all of the other terrible conditions that the Israeli system now has for Palestinian inmates.
This justification that they are Hamas terrorists just does not hold any water.
Additionally, a large percentage of the Palestinian Detainees from the West Bank are now administrative detainees, so they're never tried or prosecuted or charged properly for anything.
Administrative detention is the practice of holding a person based on secret evidence without an actual trial, right?
There's a process of, you know, a sort of mock sham of an appeal, which is not a real trial.
And it's based on an administrative decision by the Israeli military commander, based on, informed by information from the Israeli security agency, that then enables Palestinians to be put in prison for a period of six months that is then extendable, you know, Open-ended.
And people can and are held for longer periods than six months.
Since October 7th, the number of administrative detainees has skyrocketed.
A large percentage of Palestinians from the bank were now held in Israeli prisons.
are administered to the Dianese, and this means essentially they're not going to have a trial.
There's never a trial.
The only thing they can hope for is to get a sort of quote or a paraphrase based on secret evidence and try and combat that.
Now, that's a large number.
And the other issue is that a lot of Gazans are also held in Israel now in the Israeli detention system based on the illegal combatants law, which it again is another Israeli mechanism.
People, in some cases, under very vague suspicions that they are a man of fighting age, without actual evidence.
As we said in the report, the majority of people we spoke to have not actually been tried for any offense.
They may have been suspected, charged, some of them know, some of them don't know, but most of them were released without actually having to go through a trial.
And this is We're talking about, according to official data, there are approximately 10,000 Palestinians now in Israeli custody.
It's more than double the number that was in custody before October 7th.
So we're not talking about the rare occurrences where, under international law, Administrative detention is permissible, right?
It's not totally illegal under international law to hold people in this kind of preventive detention.
But it has to be done in a, you know, in very, very rare cases because it's such a draconian measure.
But what Israel has done since October 7th and many times also beforehand, there were hundreds of Palestinian administrative detainees at any given moment in recent years, also in Israeli detention, is just take this very, very narrow allowance and expand it to a situation where it's literally possible to put people behind very narrow allowance and expand it to a situation where it's literally possible to put people behind bars without them knowing anything
Maybe just add, I mean, this is just absolutely horrific.
When anyone of us thinks about the connection between what we've done and the kind of punishment we expect to have if we violate the law, we always assume that there'll be some sort of trial, that there'll be some sort of due process.
But the reality for Palestinians under Israeli detention is that there is no due process because Currently also in the military court system, the situation has become so severe that even the kind of sham theatre of trials that we saw before October 7th is not in existence.
But even beforehand, The prison system and the Israeli system for Palestinians is another tool for, you know, domination and control.
And over the years, you provide in the report a kind of background, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have gone through the detention.
There is no Palestinian family in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and in the Palestinian diaspora among refugees that have not, that do not know someone who has been incarcerated by Israel.
This is one of these central most All-encompassing methods of control by Israel of the entire Palestinian people.
Yeah, and again, I mean, the parallels with the war on terror, which most, a lot of Americans who supported it have come to regret deeply on moral grounds, strategic grounds, legal grounds, are so obvious since that's what the U.S.
did as well.
They established these military commissions that were designed to give the pretense of a very quick trial.
In fact, it was just a sham trial, as you said.
Last question, I do want to ask you about the position that your organization has now formally taken, that Israel has become an apartheid state, a term that you've used several times to describe the government there um i i last month i went to south africa and traveled around the country and had the opportunity to spend some time talking to people and visiting you know apartheid museums and seeing some of that history and i don't want to pose as an expert in south african history or anything
And I don't want to pose as an expert in South African history or anything, but, you know, the South African government, going back to Mandela and Desmond Tutu, have long been very vocal supporters of the Palestinian cause, empathizing with the Palestinian people, seeing their own struggle in the Palestinians.
but you know the south african government going back to mandela and desmond tutu have long been very vocal uh supporters of the palestinian cause empathizing with the palestinian people seeing their own struggle in in the palestinians and obviously the government now brought the first case in the international visiting, you know, apartheid museums and seeing some of that history.
And obviously the government now brought the first case in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza.
And when you go there and you just take a, even a visceral look at some of the things that were done during apartheid, the things that were the foundational aspects or characteristics of apartheid, it becomes instantly obvious why the South Africans see in the Palestinians very strong echoes of their own cause.
Obviously part of that as well is that the U.S.
and Israel supported the white minority apartheid regime and they also haven't forgotten that.
But I think it's more about the fact that how they understand themselves and their struggle in their own history.
They see that very much in the Palestinian struggle as well.
Can you talk about why you think, why your organization thinks and why you think apartheid is the appropriate term to describe the Israel and Palestinian relationship?
Yeah, so first I should say that I totally agree with your observation in terms of the way visiting South Africa kind of exposes this to one, but what we've always said is that we're not trying to make like an exact direct historical analogy between the situation on the ground now and apartheid, although again in recent years things are getting more and more shocking.
So, our assessment of the situation in our region, and we're talking about the, you know, the area of land between the river and the sea, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, is that the entire area is controlled by Israel, and it's subject to the, this Israeli control is informed by the basic principle of Jewish supremacy.
And then this basic principle is promoted Through policies and practices in four different fields of access to land, freedom of movement, residency and citizenship, and political participation.
And in each one of these categories, there are policies, there are practices, there are laws applied in order to preserve, to promote this principle of Jewish supremacy.
This is how we see apartheid in our region.
And this is, you know, as Israelis who are We also find this reality something that we simply cannot accept.
I'm, you know, I'm an Israeli Jew.
I grew up in this society.
Yes, I do have privileges, but I cannot accept them and I have to Do all I can to resist them.
In order to facilitate some sort of a future where all human beings who are living in this area between the river and the sea have the same access to rights, to freedom, to dignity.
And this is regardless of whether the The political, the diplomatic resolution is one state, two states, and many other options that exist for different political groupings.
The essential issue here is that there needs to be basic equality between all human beings Living in this area.
And even though we're not making a direct analogy to South Africa, there are some things that are quite striking.
And I think one of the issues for me isn't really, and clearly it's not really about the Petty Apartheid, it's not really about the physical separation.
It's primarily about the very clear, concerted and systematic takeover of land, right?
Taking over land From Palestinians and transferring it to Israeli-Jewish ownership is what we've seen throughout the history of Israel and we're seeing it, we've seen it inside Israel itself, inside Israel's sovereign territory and certainly
Occupied territory is kind of an outcome where ultimately the indigenous residents of the region are cooped up in enclaves with access to less and less open land and with
You know, the only option that many of them have is to become essentially wage slaves in our in Israeli industry or agriculture, because Palestinians do not have the same access to land and are constantly slowly, but not even slowly anymore, but losing
Access to vast amounts of land in the West Bank is really the essential thing that where there are very, very clear similarities between the situation in in our region and this concept of apartheid.
And then I think also this excuse of the Bandustans, right?
This the nation states that Was meant to resolve everything, right?
We've, you know, we've, we've taken as, you know, apartheid, as South Africans argued at the time, we've taken away their citizenship or they are stateless, but we'll just invent these
These fictitious states that are just completely incapable of actually being real states and providing the needs and use this as an excuse to justify the loss of all political rights and citizenship.
And I think this is something that we see here again and again because Palestinians, according to many Israelis and probably according to also I'll put it differently.
The excuse of the existence of the Palestinian Authority is used by apartheid apologists in order to justify the loss of political rights, the loss of ability to influence any sort of, you know, have any sort of political influence.
But actually, the Palestinian Authority, we know, we see it again and again on the ground right now.
is an institution that does not have any capacity to actually influence anything relevant to the future of Palestinians.
The interesting development these days, and I think it remains to be seen whether the international community allows Israel to move in this direction, is that we have now an Israeli government, parts of which are not even interested in maintaining the sham of a Palestinian authority.
In the past, Israeli leaders, even Netanyahu in his previous incarnations, have been very happy to have the Palestinian authority because it's a perfect excuse, right?
I think today when you have leaders such as Smotrych and Ben-Gvir who are clearly hell-bent on destroying even this basic Palestinian Authority, even the Palestinian Authority that is actually a subcontract of the Israeli occupation, we're in uncharted territory.
Because their project is a much faster and much more ambitious project of destroying any sort of Palestinian political aspiration.
Whereas I think Netanyahu's project has been a very slow and incremental You know, destruction of any sort of interests globally in Palestinians.
And I think this brings us really back to the issue of South Africa, because what we really need is an international solidarity movement that will... I'm not saying that it doesn't exist, clearly.
I think the only light, really, in the darkness of the last period is actually some of the growing solidarity internationally.
But I think currently when we're looking at the international community and the way it's essentially allowed Israel to continue, you know, the, the killing of the revenge killing of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.
And it's simply unfathomable.
I simply do not understand how certainly the US administration is allowing Netanyahu to continue to pursue this war without promoting a ceasefire and a hostage deal, which is the only way out of this.
And this is what we need the international community to do now, just as a first step, in order to de-escalate the situation on the ground at the moment.
Yeah, as you all know, there's extremely potent political forces inside the United States that even if a politician like Joe Biden wanted to, and I seriously doubt that he does, sort of impose those limits on Israel, the political cost would be enormous.
And just on the South Africa point, I just want to share with you, you know, you go to South Africa and you can find in every mid-sized or large city, the exact neighborhoods that were once multiracial, Or that had a large black population, which were cleansed of any racial diversity by apartheid and people who were non-white and their homes were bulldozed.
They were physically transferred to shantytowns.
They were often, you know, their possessions were destroyed.
And of course, Nelson Mandela, who we now revere globally, he and his resistance group were both classified as terrorists by the United States government, by the South African government, and many European governments as well, and 30 years later we've come to see that actually that movement was just.
So it may not be identical, but certainly the kind of theoretical foundations are extremely glaring.
Sarit, I know your work that you're doing in Israel is not easy, especially after October 7th, but I also think it's extremely important.
So I'm so glad there are people in Israel like you who are documenting these things and speaking out the way you are.
And I also appreciate your taking the time to talk to us about all that tonight.
It was super illuminating. - Absolutely.
Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Okay.
Can you just say that again for the closing thing?
Because you got a little sketchy there right at the end.
Yeah, I think I think my internet dropped.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to discuss these issues.
Always happy to do it.
Great, we'll take you up on that.
Thanks so much.
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