The Sde Teiman Scandal — and the Face of Impunity

The soldiers who raped and tortured a Palestinian detainee at Israel’s Sde Teiman detention camp have now appeared before the cameras with faces partially covered, smirking and defiant. Holding what was effectively a press conference. They didn’t apologise, not show any remorse. Instead they shouted “We will win.”

Major-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, Israel’s top military lawyer, was forced out after admitting she authorised the leak that exposed the assault; an assault so graphic it shocked even seasoned observers. Yet what followed wasn’t justice, but vengeance against those who revealed the truth.

Netanyahu and his circle now talk endlessly about “damage to Israel’s image.” but not a word about the man who was raped. Not a word about hundreds of other detainees describing the same horror inside Sde Teiman: beatings, electrocution, starvation, and sexual torture.

The country that still calls itself “the only democracy in the Middle East” persecutes its own whistle-blowers while elevating its abusers as heroes.