Zionists are Pushing for a Rape Revolution

Aug 10

Written by The PDM Team

The settler state of Israel has been sexually violent since its inception. During the Nakba, multiple instances of rape had occurred. Due to cultural taboo against speaking out on sexual assault, many of these stories had been left untold, unwritten about, and soon forgotten.

Israel continuously denies any rape and sexual assault violations brought forth by Palestinian men, while Palestinian women typically keep their experiences private, not even sharing their horrific stories with family. The Zionist militia used fear of sexual assault as a tactic of war to intimidate Palestinians, hoping they would flee their villages and towns in fear to avoid being victims of such violence. In a recent Israeli documentary called “Tantura,” retired IOF soldiers spoke proudly, with smiles on their faces, about sexually assaulting a young Palestinian in the village. ‘Israel’ denies this until this day.

One day in 1949, on the holiest day of the week in Judaism, a group of IOF gang members captured a young Palestinian Bedouin girl. They were having a party in the desert that night, and their platoon leader remembered that they had captured this girl. The gang members voted between enslaving the young girl as their kitchen worker or sexually assaulting her. They chose the latter and later “saw fit to remove her from the world.” A 2018 Human Rights Watch report states that a young man in Balata, a suburb of Nablus, was subject to electric shocks and a cord wrapped around his penis for 8 to 9 hours. - source

A 2021 study released in the Journal of Women and Social Work interviewed 20 female Palestinian hostage prisoners, 19 of which had ‘experienced some sort of unwanted verbal and nonverbal sexual comments or gestures, forced nudity, or forced touching by prison personnel.’ - Source Many of the women sexually abused in Israeli prisons believe that “sexual harassment, and at times violence, is official Israeli police policy.”

Since October 2023, women detained by the IOF have not only been subjected to sexual assault but also the denial of sanitary napkins, physical beatings, rape, and the threat of rape and sexual violence. There has been a report in the Middle East Monitor of a woman being sexually assaulted in front of her family, raped for two days straight until she could no longer speak. - source. Israel denies every single allegation of rape. They are never met with any consequences.

“Israelis” used sexual assault and rape since the inception of the settler colonial entity. Historian, Ilan Pappe, documented multiple accounts of rape throughout Palestine during the Nakba as they were performed by ‘Israeli’ terrorist forces — which later went on to make up what we now know as the IOF — in his book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.” ‘Israelis’ used the threat of rape against women and children to forcefully displace hundreds of families and thousands of people who heard stories of horrific sexual violence from Deir Yasin and other ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages — once the families would take their women and children to safety, they found that they were forbidden from returning to their home villages and towns. The ‘country’ of ‘Israel’ was literally founded through rape and sexual assault of the native population of Palestinians.

For decades since then, Palestinians of all genders have faced brutal assault not only on their bodily autonomy but also on their ancestral homeland. One such way the Zionist entity rapes the land is by burning down hundreds of years old olive trees — one of the primary sources of income for Palestinians and an enduring symbol of our heritage. This process of theft of not only our bodily autonomy but of our land and culture is called “Mughtasbat,” or “theft” and “rape.” The occupation in itself is a criminal that perpetuates unending abuse onto the lives and land of Palestinians, and Palestinians are in danger as long as this inhumane occupation exists to inflict harm on our people.

Recent events have exposed extreme Zionist protests erupting in response to the detention of several IOF soldiers accused of brutalizing a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman facility. Demonstrators, waving Israeli flags and storming military bases, have justified the abuse, with some far-right figures defending the alleged rape as permissible against "terrorists." This disturbing rationale reveals a troubling stance where Zionists are not only protesting against the legal accountability of the soldiers but are also openly endorsing and legitimizing rape as an acceptable practice under the guise of national security. Such actions underscore a profound moral and ethical crisis, where the right to abuse is grotesquely framed as a defense of national values.

A sentiment of promoting rape and violent forms of sexual assault against Palestinians is echoed within the Zionist regime’s leaders, such as “Israeli” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who described the soldiers being questioned as heroes rather than criminals, arguing they should be celebrated for their actions. Far-right Israeli lawmaker Hanoch Milwidsky infamously declared that any form of abuse against Palestinians, including rape, is acceptable, shouting, "If he is a Nukhba [Hamas militant], everything is legitimate to do!" Additionally, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, known for his provocative and alarming positions, called for the soldiers' release and condemned the investigation as unjust. These endorsements of violence and abuse highlight a disturbing normalization of such conduct within Israeli politics and society. When many zionist leaders in the government, alongside illegal settlers, endorse or minimize heinous acts such as rape and severe sexual assault and abuse, it reflects a deep-seated corruption of ethical standards and a willingness to normalize violence under the guise of “self-defense.”

This normalization of brutality and the defense of such behavior indicates a rotten society that continues to stray far away from any principles of justice and human rights. The very foundations of moral and legal accountability are erased when many zionist settlers protest their jurisdictions and push forward “a right to rape” Palestinians. There is no co-existence or redemption for a society that condones or justifies such disturbing behavior. The Zionist entity continues to deny any allegations or incidents of sexual assault and rape towards the Palestinians from 1948 till now.

Cited Sources