Where are the heroes?
A society in which soldiers who torture security prisoners are widely hailed as ‘heroes,’ and those who investigate them as traitors, is in deep moral distress
The latest, appalling chapter in Israel’s most recent legal-military-political drama ended early on Sunday evening, when Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who was until last Friday the IDF’s military advocate general, turned up alive on a Herzliya beach, hours after her car had been found abandoned nearby. In it was found an apparent suicide note.
But the “Sde Teiman affair” is far from over, and intricate and tortuous as its narrative may be, it is worth recounting if only because of what it reveals about the truly perverted condition of the country’s political life today.
Sde Teiman is the name of an army base in the desert northwest of Beersheba. After the Gaza war began, following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, part of Sde Teiman was turned into a detention center through which thousands of Gazans classified as “illegal combatants” (who are not subject to the protections afforded prisoners of war) passed. Conditions in the camp were reported to be abominable, and Palestinians who were later released described substandard nourishment and health care, as well as beatings and torture, and the sort of humiliating treatment that is reminiscent of stories from Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War. By May 2024, The New York Times reported that 35 prisoners had died while being held at Sde Teiman.
In July 2024, the office of Maj. Gen. Tomer-Yerushalmi, a 29-year veteran of the IDF who took over as its top legal official four years ago, received evidence of an especially egregious case of abuse. A Hamas prisoner had been brought for emergency medical care after suffering internal injuries consistent with anal penetration with an iron rod. A review of Sde Teiman’s surveillance videos showed a group of Israeli guards at the camp carrying the Gazan, who was not suspected of involvement in the October attack, from the prison yard where he and dozens of other blindfolded detainees were made to lie on the ground, to a more remote spot where the alleged torture evidently took place. “Evidently,” because the soldiers shielded what they were doing from the camera with several large riot shields.
The disturbing affair burst into the public eye on July 29, 2024, when military police arrived at Sde Teiman to arrest the five soldiers who by then they had identified as having carried out the alleged abuse. When the MPS arrived at the camp, however, they were met by other guards who tried by force to prevent both the arrests and the collection of video footage and medical records. The MPS were attacked, had guns aimed at them, and, lacking proper backup, eventually had to escape the base. A short time later, hundreds of protesters arrived at the base to show their support for the suspects, and broke into it. They were joined by at least three Knesset members – Zvi Sukkot and Amichay Eliyahu (the latter also a government minister), of the Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties, respectively, and Likud’s Nissim Vaturi.
When the suspects from Sde Teiman were transported north to a military court at Beit Lid, near Netanya, for arraignment, there too a violent demonstration ensued.
There was public outrage. Of course, some of it came from the usual “rule-of-law” types, who were shocked and appalled, first by the reports of the sexual torture, and second by the violent resistance to the arrest of those suspected of carrying it out. But far more conspicuous were the anger and indignation of those who could not excuse the assault on the dignity of IDF “heroes” — the guards who, in their eyes, had just been doing their jobs. Among those who expressed his disbelief was Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who declared his “shock” at seeing images of soldiers being treated “in a way suitable for the arrest of dangerous criminals.”
“Poison machine” is the term that has become shorthand in Israel in recent years to describe the manipulation of both the mainstream and social media by extreme right-wingers who are dedicated to weakening Israel’s police, prosecution and judiciary, and in damaging public confidence in the media. It is taken for granted here that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose trial on a variety of corruption charges is now in its sixth year, with no end in sight, is behind much of the rhetoric, large quantities of which emanate from members of his own party. Certainly, the prime minister rarely contradicts or scolds them.
It is in this context that one can understand, though not excuse, Tomer-Yerushalmi’s decision, a week after the riot at Sde Teiman, to have her office leak to TV Channel 12 an edit of the prison surveillance tapes in which one can see the Hamas prisoner being carried away and the subsequent assault on him. Haaretz reported at the time that some of the military police who participated in the arrest of the suspects were reluctant to submit official complaints to the army authorities about what they experienced when they came to Sde Teiman to carry out the arrests.
The intimidation reached further up the hierarachy too. Writing in the paper on October 15, 2024, reporters Josh Breiner and Bar Peleg wrote how, “A senior source familiar with the affair said that the military police commanders have been refraining from investigating the affair due to public pressure by right-wing activists.
“‘How are soldiers supposed to feel when they followed procedures, under threats, and then discover that no-one has their backs?’” a senior officer told the journalists. Ironically, this complaint is just one of many voiced anonymously by army officials who long claimed that Tomer-Yerushalmi’s tenure as MAG was characterized by leniency and a reluctance to pursue cases against soldiers suspected of war crimes. On the far right, however, she is portrayed as an enemy of the state.
In her letter of resignation, offered to IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir this past Friday (October 31), Tomer-Yerushalmi said that she accepted “full responsibility for any material released.” She explained that her illegal decision to leak material from an investigation underway was intended “to counter the false propaganda directed against law enforcement authorities in the army.”
Immediately after the tape was broadcast, on August 6 of last year, an investigation was launched to discover the source of the leak. It was Tomer-Yerushalmi’s department, however, that carried out the investigation. Not only that, the MAG herself subsequently lied to both the chief of staff and to Israel’s attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, about her role in the affair.
Last Wednesday, the investigation’s findings reached the desk of Chief of Staff Zamir. Tomer-Yerushalmi took immediate leave, and two days later, resigned her position. Defense Minister Yaakov Katz accused her of spreading a “blood libel against IDF soldiers”; and at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu himself characterized the leak of the video – not the alleged crimes depicted in the clip – as “perhaps the worst public-relations attack experienced by Israel since its establishment,” in 1948.
And so it was that on Sunday, Tomer-Yerushalmi went missing. For several hours in early evening, the country was gripped with suspense about her fate, after the police announced their “grave concern” that she had taken her life. After the attorney made contact with her husband, he informed the police, who then located her on a beach in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. Within minutes of the news that she was alive, Channel 14’s popular host Yinon Magal announced gleefully on social media that “the lynch may continue,” while Likud MK Tali Gotliv wasted no time in declaring that “The Military Advocate General’s suicide attempt is just another try at regaining control of the discourse and removing her shameful acts from the headlines.”
After a quick physical and psychiatric evaluation, Tomer-Yerushalmi was placed under arrest, as was the former chief prosecutor in the MAG’s office, Matan Solomesh, both on suspicion of leaking material connected to an investigation.
Undoubtedly, there will be pressure to dismiss altogether the case against the five soldiers from Sde Teiman who were eventually charged with aggravated assault, because of the illegal actions of the army’s legal authorities, which it will be said make a fair trial impossible. As for the break-in at Sde Teiman and assault there on military police, to date even an investigation into the events has barely gotten off the ground.
Why should any of this complex, even esoteric story matter to the reader? Perhaps it shouldn’t, if you take it as a given that Israel’s democracy and rule of law are lost causes. But, the country is entering an election year, and loud and threatening as the anti-democratic forces currently leading the country are, polling shows that a majority of the electorate does not support them.
Nonetheless, the leaders of the so-called political opposition have shown an extreme reluctance to take stands that are likely to elicit the kind of ugly, verbally violent opprobrium that has been experienced by the legal authorities in the Israel Defense Forces. (The only exception to this among Jewish politicians has been Yair Golan -- himself a former deputy chief of staff -- and his colleagues at the new Democrats political alliance) They are guilty of the same timidity that is attributed to Tomer-Yerushalmi. They seem to have forgotten that the public looks to its politicians for leadership, even vision, and not merely to follow the results of the latest surveys and focus groups delivered up by their consultants. Israelis desperately needs leaders who will speak the truth to them, and take stands that, though they may be damaging to them in the short run, they must know are right. Right now, however, the conversation is being controlled by a criminal and immoral junta.
If you care about the State of Israel, you need to know that the situation is dire.
Excellent piece - thank you for this. You are absolutely right.
Thank you for writing this blog. As an American secular Jew, I have limited experience with Israeli society and politics. The one time I travelled to Israel was to volunteer at the Umm el Fahem gallery more than a decade ago. I have been reading your posts ever since you wrote about the gallery a couple of years ago. I really value your insights and opinions. Chilling how many parallels there seem to be between the current situations in Israel and in the U.S.