My heart cries out in rage when I hear stories of the gang rape of Palestinian prisoners.
We hear such dreadful stories and the people of Israel are openly supporting this descent into moral hell. (select link)
Jonathan Ofir has written:
‘The level of sadism enacted upon Palestinians really defies description. Palestinians are now coming forth with the most graphic details about their sexual torture, like this victim on video (trigger warning):
“I’ve been shocked by electricity through my anus. I’ve been shocked by electricity on my testicles! This is literally what happened to me – not just me but others who were shocked by electricity. You know why? Because we refused to speak dirty of [Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya] al-Sinwar. You can imagine what I’m saying… Just because I refused to spill out the dirty words, they said ok and then five of them gathered around me, five soldiers, they came to beat me up. One of them forced me to lie down on my back, he opened my thighs and smashed my private area – he literally smashed my testicles. He said: ‘I don’t want you to have kids anymore’.”
One must reflect upon the additional humiliation of speaking like this about one’s own person and body, openly. But these people have been subjected to such physical and emotional destruction, that they are now shouting out to the world to make it stop, not least for their brethren still undergoing this torture.
It is shocking, but is it shocking to the majority of Israelis?’
He concludes:
‘The “self-defense” claim, which was reportedly used by the lawyers defending the gang rape suspects, is something that Israel has been using for everything it does to Palestinians. It just might be that the gang rape of a shackled prisoner will finally help some people understand that this racist justification is really just an excuse for something else far more sinister.’
I can only refer to Shakespeare again:
‘Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy—
…
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quartered with the hands of war,
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds,
…………, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.’
(Julius Caesar: Act 3, scene 1)
I must leave the last word to Aime Cesaire who was witness to similar events:
Aime Cesaire:
‘we must resign ourselves to the inevitable and say to ourselves, once and for all, that the bourgeoisie is condemned to become every day more snarling, more openly ferocious, more shameless, more summarily barbarous; that it is an implacable law that every decadent class finds itself turned into a receptacle into which there flow all the dirty waters of history; that it is a universal law that before it disappears, every class must first disgrace itself completely, on all fronts, and that it is with their heads buried in the dunghill that dying societies utter their swan songs.’
‘Discourse on Colonialism.’