All we wanted is to abuse Palestinian prisoners and not feel uncomfortable about it

Aren’t we lucky that our country is blessed with generous capitalists, who are willing to pour their vast wealth into regime propaganda channels like Channel 14 and i24. Only such channels can be trusted to dramatically interrupt their programs and switch to a live broadcast of the “Force 100 fighters’ media conference” — as if this were a national emergency and not five guards accused of horrific abuse, spouting phrases scripted for them by polished media consultants.

“Instead of being embraced by the nation, we got indictments, instead of thanks, we got silence,” one of the defendants, masked and full of resentment, complained. What a disgrace, it’s a real shame, where have we come to if our soldiers can no longer stick a knife in a Palestinian’s arse without someone making them feel uncomfortable about it. “You tried to break us,” he continued pathetically, “but you forgot one thing: we are Force 100.” And everyone knows that you can’t break Force 100 — Force 100 breaks you. Then it drags you on the floor, stomps on you, crushes your ribs and makes sure that all of this is hidden from the cameras.

“I saw my man being torn apart from the inside,” said Hila, the wife of one of the defendants. A brave turn of phrase, considering that this is one of the people who, according to the indictment, inserted a sharp object into a detainee’s buttocks and caused his intestines to rupture. It’s a good thing that she didn’t say the military prosecutor’s office sodomised her husband. “I am proud of you and your courage to stand up to the enemy, even when that enemy is right inside the system,” Hila told her partner. You can really feel the sweat of the strategists who polished the venomous wording, which implicitly compares the Military Advocate General to terrorists and marks both as enemies who should be imprisoned in torture camps.

Everyone knows that you can’t break Force 100 — Force 100 breaks you. Then it drags you on the floor, stomps on you, crushes your ribs and makes sure that all of this is hidden from the cameras

Lawyer Ephraim Damari, who represents the defendants, stated that “the soldiers who are here… on the forthcoming Independence Day will light a torch — as heroes and as victims.” Under normal circumstances, this would have been a dark joke, but in our current state of affairs, it is a fair enough assessment of the situation. And really, who symbolises contemporary Israel more than the five heroes who abused a handcuffed Palestinian detainee? The public demanded “screw the Gazans” — and the defendants, on the whole, implemented the suggestion a little too literally.

Benjamin Netanyahu did not participate in the media conference (he prefers to avoid occasions where he might be asked questions), but he contributed to the incitement campaign at the beginning of the ministry meeting. “This is perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced since its establishment,” he declared — referring, of course, to the leaking of the video and not to the acts documented in it. Two years of unbridled devastation, soldiers posting war crimes on TikTok, ministers who boast about abusing prisoners and journalists who call for genocide, but the “PR attack” is precisely the one time when the system remembered that the law must be enforced.

Translated from Hebrew by Sol Salbe, Middle East News Service

Haaretz Hebrew original