[Opinion. Not a pariah state? Hahahahaha!]

Flotilla video: Ben-Gvir’s template of televised abuse was honed on Palestinians

Targeting of foreign activists drew global outrage from governments that have not acted on violence against Palestinian detainees

Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem

The Guardian: 22 May 2026

Israeli data shows at least 98 Palestinians have died in custody since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and the ensuing war. They include a 17-year-old probably killed by starvation. Israel’s supreme court has repeatedly ordered the government to end food deprivation.

Documented abuse of detainees includes an assault and rape filmed on security cameras and reported to police by Israeli medics. Netanyahu described the alleged perpetrators as “heroic” and a failed attempt to prosecute them as “criminal”.

Netanyahu has never criticised extreme abuse of Palestinian detainees and denounced a recent New York Times investigation into rape of Palestinians, including in prisons, as a “blood libel” and threatened to sue the newspaper.

“Crimes are framed as the actions of rogue settlers, abusive prison guards, or soldiers acting outside orders. Systematic violations are thus detached from policymakers and from the Israeli state itself,” Shalev said.

“Israel’s legitimacy remains intact, while performative condemnations allow the ‘international community’ to preserve its moral self-image without confronting the structural nature of the violence.”

Since then, surging attacks in the occupied West Bank have prompted the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert to call for the international criminal court to intervene “to save the Palestinians and us [Israelis]” from state-backed settler violence.

Good thing they werent protesting Iranian actions in Iranian waters, they would have sunck the boat, raped the women and then hung them from cranes.

Israelis are waaaaaaay too nice.

Edited May 23May 23 by Yagoda