The Role of Sexualized Violence
The Role of Sexualized Violence
Sexualized Violence in Israeli Prisons
Reminder: The red sentences are links – click on them to go to the relevant Kritikpunkt article.
In the course of a ceasefire last week, some Palestinians were released from Israeli captivity, at least from one of their many chains.
The prisoners report brutal mistreatment, ranging from disfigurement by angry dogs, to whipping and rape.
The prisoners’ reports to the BBC include physical violence, such as beatings with sticks, the release of dogs against prisoners, as well as the deprivation of clothing, food, and blankets. A female prisoner reported threats of rape and the use of tear gas in the cells.
The statements of former prisoners, such as Mohammed Nazzal, who was held without charge, emphasize how the Israeli state, through its justice and law enforcement agencies, exercises structural violence to oppress the Palestinian population and break any form of resistance.
These actions are not isolated incidents; they are part of a systematic strategy of dominance and control, comparable to past colonial regimes.
In particular, sexualized violence, manifested through rape, disrobing, and threats of violence, is not an isolated feature of an otherwise generic brutal prison system but is central to the colonial hegemony over Palestinians.
Sexualized violence has historically played and continues to play a dual role in colonial relations of domination and control.
The humiliation associated with sexualized violence is a deliberate tool for dehumanization of the victims, who are demonstratively subordinated to the absolute power of state agents through acts like rape/disrobing, etc.
For Palestinians, this impact is further amplified by the sexually conservative/patriarchal culture of the Middle East.
Unlike regular torture, whose primary aim is physical pain, sexualized violence does not explicitly seek physical pain (though it is a byproduct); rather, it aims to destroy dignity, self-worth, and the will to resist.
More than regular torture—which, while cruel, primarily aims at causing pain—sexualized violence represents the highest form of dominance.
Legitimate Rape
The bourgeois press, as well as earlier coverage of Abu Ghraib, paid little attention to it.
In tabloid media, there is nothing about it, not even a mention in the world press that reports abuse with a single headline.
“The BBC, for example, claims to have spoken to six released detainees, all of whom stated they had been beaten behind bars. One woman was even reportedly threatened with rape” (FR)
And what little coverage there is from bourgeois media often sounds like a dismissive eye roll at Palestinian suffering.
The BBC “claims” to have spoken with six released detainees – is the BBC now already Al Jazeera for the bourgeois?
Such disregard for the rapes allegedly occurring in Israeli prisons reflects the very image of impurity and general subjugation with which slave owners legitimized the rape of their slaves.
We recall the gruesome (partly debunked) reports of rapes said to have taken place by Hamas on October 7.
The bourgeois press could not comprehend that such violence could happen to those who look so much like themselves – but not now.
When the Israeli army’s rapists were summoned for questioning, Israeli right-wing extremists stormed the prison last Wednesday to prevent their interrogation.
Because, for the right-wing in Israel’s government, such mistreatment is not even worth covering up:
“A member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party justified on Monday during a gathering of legislators the rape and abuse of Palestinian prisoners, shouting at colleagues who questioned the alleged conduct that it is legitimate to “hurt” “terrorists” in custody.
When asked by the parliamentarian Hanoch Milwidsky whether it is legitimate to “insert a stick into a person’s rectum,”
he responded, “Yes! If he is a Nukhba [Hamas fighter], everything is permitted, everything! “
Like the slave driver and colonial master, it is not a problem for the imperialist to rape Palestinians, because the justification stems from their fundamental dehumanization.
Just as it is acceptable to kill a fly because humans are superior to them.
The hatred against Palestinians, legitimized by the aforementioned parliamentarian through their affiliation with Hamas, is of course independent of that affiliation, as such rapes have also been reported in the West Bank.
Palestinians opposing the hegemon must feel the power imbalance through the most extreme manifestation of this relationship—hence, the simple existence as a Palestinian, a background that in itself is a form of resistance.