“Everything Is Legitimate To Do! Everything!”
How Israel threw its soul away.
In one house, survivors found the body of a naked woman, with nails driven into her groin and abdomen, and a spike-like object wedged into her bloodied vagina, next to another body, headless, mutilated everywhere. In one incident, an eyewitness saw a woman being gang-raped, during which one of the rapists cut off her breast and threw it to others to play with in the street, as the rapes continued until the woman was shot in the head.
Multiply this a thousand times or more and you get a sense of the demonic forces that entered Israel on October 7, 2023. The new report is here. I could only read so much. But try. What makes this world-historically evil is that these monsters didn’t just do these things; they taped them, broadcast them, live-streamed them to their parents as they set about mutilating, raping, and massacring other human beings just because they were Jews. They were as proud of this as Hitler’s willing executioners. This, after all, is what would get them to paradise.
As it was, furious debates broke out almost immediately about the accuracy of various gruesome details — “beheaded babies” and the like — and social media did its thing. Even when so much is undisputed and horrific, a few untruths will slip through into the MSM slipstream at first — and people will use them to discredit the entire thing. That’s why a solid report like the new one on October 7 is important.
Hamas, of course, was well known for its unhinged barbarism long before 10/7, and video evidence was plentiful, so only a few stray assertions came under fire for exactitude. But when otherwise respectable and even admirable groups or individuals come under suspicion of committing atrocities, we are rightly more skeptical. And in war time, when propaganda is flying, the impulse to look the other way at potential abuses on one’s own side is particularly hard to resist.
So in 2003 during the first months of the Iraq War, when I first read the rumors of US soldiers stripping detainees naked, forcing them into tiny boxes with no light for days on end, hanging them for days in stress positions akin to a crucifixion, soaking them with water then tying them to posts in freezing temperatures overnight to induce hypothermia to the edge of death, and so on, I instantly judged and dismissed them as self-evident, crass Jihadist propaganda.
In fact, this was so clear to me that in November 2003, I reposted a story that mocked Robert Fisk’s recent journalism in Iraq because he “seems only to have haunted the prison of Abu Ghraib and the mortuary of Yarmouk hospital, exclusively searching for American brutality.” I concluded that “if Robert Fisk isn’t malign, he’s nutty. I see no other alternative explanation.”
Equally, when the first reports of systematic, condoned sexual abuse of minors and children in the Catholic church came out, I held my breath. Some of the stories were so grotesque they seemed too fantastic: priests molesting minors after giving them communion, for God’s sake. Martin Luther couldn’t have made that up. Or something I still can’t absorb: a boarding school for deaf boys where a priest raped only the boys who did not know sign language, so they couldn’t tell their parents. What am I supposed to do with a story like that? Believe it?
“I can only say why, after a scrupulous examination of the claims and counterclaims, I have arrived at moral certainty that the charges [against Fr. Maciel] are false and malicious,” declared Richard John Neuhaus when reports first emerged that the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Marcial Maciel, deemed a saint by many, was less than perfect. We now know that Maciel — a darling of John Paul II — abused at least 60 minors, and raped two of his own sons (yes, he was a priest who had kids with multiple women on the DL). Neuhaus had to claw back his statement but never regained his credibility.
I’m proud I didn’t dismiss the first reports of sex abuse in the US or accuse Marty Baron of being an anti-Catholic bigot. I’m not proud it took me a while to see the Bush-Cheney torture regime for what it truly was. I worried about the propaganda hit; I nitpicked that we shouldn’t equate it with Saddam’s torture: “Please send in examples of the anti-war media peddling this notion.” By May 2004, a week after the first photos from Abu Ghraib aired, this is where I was:
What more can we do about this? Like most of you, I’ve had a hard time coming to grips with the appalling abuses perpetrated by some under U.S. command in, of all places, Abu Ghraib. We can make necessary distinctions between this abuse and the horrifying torture of Saddam’s rule, but they cannot obliterate the sickening feeling in the pit of the stomach.
That “sickening feeling in the pit of the stomach” might be affecting some of the more conscientious supporters of Israel right now. Every day on social media, we see snapshots of what looks like evil: drone shots of Gaza revealing a moonscape of Nagasaki-level destruction; entire towns in southern Lebanon wiped off the face of the earth so no one can return; a group of settlers bulldozing an Arab town’s olive orchard as the IDF looks on; so many children buried in rubble in Gaza or burned alive; a neofascist member of the Israeli government celebrating his birthday with a cake with a noose on it — for Palestinian terrorists; clips of TV shows where IDF soldiers laugh about sodomizing prisoners or letting a dog “take care of” alleged members of Hamas in jail; it goes on and on. It’s a mentality summed up by a Likud member in the Knesset in 2024:
Lawmaker Hanoch Milwidsky was asked as he defended the alleged abuse whether it was legitimate “to insert a stick into a person’s rectum?” “Yes!” he shouted in reply to his fellow parliamentarian. “If he is a Nukhba [Hamas militant], everything is legitimate to do! Everything!”
And, sure, these images may well distort our sense of reality the way out-of-context social media clips always can. Most of Israel most of the time has none of this. And because Israel keeps journalists out of most relevant places, and have killed over 200 of them in Gaza (around half of whom they say are Hamas), objective, reliable evidence is hard to find.
But still, the context for claims of Israeli excesses is obvious: a traumatized Israeli psyche that has radicalized even more during this war, in which inhibitions around hating the enemy have obviously loosened. And the man in charge of the prison system is Itamar Ben-Gvir — a far-right Kahanist, Jewish supremacist. He’s as close to a neofascist as you can get. His view of Arabs, let alone suspected terrorists, is, shall we say, not great.
So a recent Abu Ghraib-like case in the system he presides over is worth looking at. A prisoner in Sde Teiman, Israel’s torture and prison camp, was handcuffed, blindfolded, beaten, tased, and sodomized with a broom handle, ending up in the hospital with broken ribs and a ruptured bowel. The incident was even caught on videotape, but the grisly details were concealed behind IDF shields.
An investigation was opened, but then stymied as the perpetrators became instant heroes to the Israeli far right. Before long, all charges against the accused were dropped, and the men celebrated their freedom on national TV as Netanyahu called them “heroic fighters.” Even though there was physical evidence of a broken body and ruptured rectum, the attackers are now back in uniform. That’s the culture we’re dealing with: where torture makes you a “heroic fighter” in the words of Netanyahu — as if it takes courage for a group of men to break a single, defenseless prisoner’s body.
That’s a climate almost guaranteeing that torture will metastasize. And indeed, two reports from the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem have documented routine torture ramped up in the past two years. The names of the reports give you an idea of what’s in them: “Welcome to Hell” and “Living Hell.” One thing we do know is that at least 98 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October 2023. That’s never a good sign of what’s actually going on inside.
And this, it seems to me, is the key context for Nick Kristof’s highly controversial column in the NYT this week. We have been told its claims are “dead on arrival,” “absurd,” a “blood libel,” part of a “vast propaganda machine.” The Free Press, which has run one piece in its entire history on the West Bank settlements (downplaying them), has now run five pieces slamming Kristof’s perfidy. Merely for airing it on Notes, I’ve been subjected to a tidal wave of outrage, canceled subscriptions, and vicious accusations of being a Jew hater.
But, although I can’t of course verify Kristof’s piece, I take it seriously because it has many on-the-record sources, some of the alleged torture victims have made themselves public (a remarkable thing for a raped man to do in the Middle East), and because Kristof has had a career working these kinds of cases around the world. All of that simply means I cannot dismiss it out of hand, as others are so gleefully doing.
But it’s dog rape! Whoever heard of such a thing? I hear you, of course. But had you ever heard of “rectal feeding” or “smearing with fake menstrual blood” until Abu Ghraib and Gitmo? Or of anyone, let alone a priest, raping more than 200 deaf kids? Or of police turning a blind eye to organized rape-gangs of children so as not to appear racist? Or of doctors ending a child’s ability to ever have an orgasm because they read some Judith Butler? The unimaginable happens. This is the human psyche we’re talking about. The darkness is deep.
Still: dogs for torture? Not entirely as crazy as you might think. We Americans used them to terrorize naked prisoners in Abu Ghraib (see the image above). The dogs along with the nudity combined a cultural taboo with total sexual humiliation: an “enhanced interrogation technique” designed to target Arab cultural modesty. Ditto for the dog collars on detainees. Pinochet used German shepherds to sexually assault torture victims, and the Nazi Klaus Barbie did the same, according to an actual Holocaust survivor. What “rape” means is unclear, of course. When I have written of priestly “child rape,” for example, I haven’t always specifically meant anal penetration.
But when you start to get into the details of what precisely “rape” is, you realize you’ve lost all perspective. This Israeli-born substacker nails it:
For all we know, the brave IDF K9 soldiers didn’t insert their dog penises into the rectums of Palestinian prisoners. Maybe they only humped the men while they were bent over, naked. Maybe they lunged at the men’s genitals. Maybe a prison guard smeared peanut butter on someone’s ass and laughed as a dog licked it all up. What an insane debate to be having.
But Israel’s most passionate supporters have nonetheless drawn a line. Anyone who even entertains that the Kristof piece might be true is self-evidently “either nutty or malign,” to use my own words from 2003. Adam Mossoff, a George Mason law professor, fulminated: “If you ever wondered what was the mindset of the Jews running the ghettos (Judenrat) who assisted the Nazis in rounding up other Jews for the trains to the death camps, you now have a living example in Nicholas Kristof.” The most sighted poster at a protest outside the NYT today: “End Jew Hatred.” Could they get more woke?
This theme — equating some IDF guards with all Jews — is ubiquitous among neocons, something that would be deemed prime facie antisemitism if Nick Fuentes trafficked in it. “The [NYT] owes Israel and every Jew around the world an apology,” says Joe Walsh. “I’m sorry but ‘Jews trained dogs to rape prisoners’ is an IQ test and a lot of you are failing,” proclaims Batya Ungar-Sargon.
Ok, I’m failing that test. But I don’t believe that the IDF in 2026 somehow represents all Jews worldwide. And after all I’ve observed and lived through these past few decades, I can live with taking all of Kristof’s claims seriously until they have been thoroughly and meticulously investigated. Let the Red Cross in. Let journalists into Gaza. If you have nothing to hide, stop acting as if you do.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: a paean to Maeve Halligan on the TQ+ madness; a friendly debate with Jerusalem Demsas on liberalism and the Dems; many reader dissents over Kristof and the EEOC suing the NYT; five notable quotes from the week in news; 12 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break of Massive Attack and PSB; a sunny window from Florida; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
Form a new paid subscriber:
I’m a classic West Coast liberal, but one interested in finding the truth and not just succumbing to dogma. I’ve read your work for many years now, and it’s been of great value in helping me broaden my interpretation of politics and see some of the flaws in things I thought I believed in.
A Star Is Born
Before you read anything else on the Dish, go listen to this short speech in the Cambridge Union last night from one Maeve Halligan defending the proposition that “modern LGBTQ activism fails its community.” We so need voices from her generation exposing the fraudulence, homophobia, and misogyny of the TQ+ movement that highjacked gay rights in the last decade and abused so many gay kids. We have found a new one — and boy is it powerful! Spread the word.
New On The Dishcast: Jerusalem Demsas
Jerusalem is a journalist and entrepreneur. She’s a former staff writer at The Atlantic and a former policy writer and podcaster at Vox. Last year she founded The Argument, a liberal magazine on Substack, where she serves as CEO and editor-in-chief. We went at it on liberalism and how to reform the Democrats.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on Biden’s biggest mistakes, and how DEI went off the rails. That link also takes you to commentary on last week’s pod with Adrian Wooldridge and the previous one with Tom Junod. We also air a lot of reader debate over Kristof’s column and the EEOC lawsuit against the NYT, with my replies throughout. And a dose of Truman.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. We have some real stars coming up: Ben Rhodes on Iran and speech-writing, Harvey Mansfield on modernity, HW Brands on the life of George Washington, John Gray on Trump’s new world, Bob Wright on the evolutionary force of AI, Tiffany Jenkins on privacy in a liberal democracy, Daniel McCarthy on conservatism, Stephen Grosz on the struggles of love, and Robby George on all our disagreements. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
From a returning paid subscriber:
I had decided to let my paid membership lapse because I thought conversations were too often Trump-centric and similar to one another, but that Tom Junod interview reminded me how uniquely excellent and weirdly individualistic your discussions can be. I lasted two days away from the paid subscription, and then you earned my support once again — you thoughtful, occasionally aggravating old bear.
I’m so grateful, especially considering the wave of cancellations over criticism of Israel. Over 25 years of this, I find I often purge a subset of readers every time I take on a contentious issue, and take it as a sign I’m not off-track. Sometimes, of course, they have a point, and I adjust. But the woke cancellations — from right and left — are badges of honor here. If you want to support sites that piss off readers on a regular basis, you know how to help:
Dissent Of The Week
Here’s a reader on last week’s column on the EEOC suing the NYT:
Just like the Trump EEOC, you are missing the point when you take some legitimate questions about a specific deputy-editor recruitment at NYT and extrapolate from there to demonize all of the NYT’s diversity practices. Look at the chart you display at the top of your column. Isn’t it dismal that in a city whose residents are majority non-white, the largest newspaper has a leadership that was 83% white and is still 63% white? Wouldn’t any newspaper seeking a broader audience want to diversify its staff?
As a white, male, HR professional who has worked in organizations where I was a minority, I know there are many ways to diversify WITHOUT favoring particular candidates in the selection process. The NYT seems to be doing many of them. Find more qualified Black, Hispanic, and Asian candidates. Convince them to apply, even though they might worry about working under a non-diverse leadership. Remove unnecessary job requirements that inadvertently screen out certain demographic groups even though they aren’t that relevant to the job; instead, focus the job requirements on the core things you actually need to succeed. (Perhaps writing skills matter more than subject-matter experience or knowledge of particular computer software.)
The EEOC’s complaint seems to argue that all of those things constitute illegal racial discrimination. That’s hogwash. Expanding the net should be encouraged; it’s the only way to ensure that employers see ALL the best candidates, not just those whose race, sex, or socioeconomic status put them on the traditional path to a particular job.
I don’t think the EEOC complaint damns all those things. And I sure don’t oppose trying to find as much talent everywhere you can. But “diversity” is not just skin color. A diverse newsroom would have a significant number of weekly church-goers, for example, or a few Nebraskans, or more working-class journos, and lots of bigots. But the emphasis is on race because the theory behind this is critical theory, which posits that race is the factor; and a “black” person who’s a Nigerian Yale grad is no different than someone who grew up in the Bronx. It’s not diversity; it’s racism. And it’s not seeking talent; it’s meeting quotas.
Many more dissents on this topic and others are on the pod page. As always, please keep the criticism coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
In The ‘Stacks
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as the Dem woes over redistricting, the Labour losses in Britain last week, and creeping signs of socialism. Examples:
Are higher minimum wages closing racial gaps?
Some New Yorkers don’t press charges based on the race of their assailant.
If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday at 11.59 pm (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription. Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. Here’s an explosive entry from last week:
Mt. Vesuvius, which destroyed the city of Pompeii in 79 AD, is about 13.5 miles (as the crow flies) from the hotel. Some 20 miles by air from the hotel is a lesser known, but potentially much more dangerous, supervolcano. It’s known as Campi Flegrei (a/k/a Phlegraean Fields), a caldera that formed after massive volcanic eruptions tens of thousands of years ago.
According to many scientists, Campi Flegrei poses a much greater risk to the region than Vesuvius does. Given the densely populated Naples metro area, a major eruption of the Campi Flegrei could easily kill hundreds of thousands of people and cause devastation across the region. Here’s an excerpt from a November 2025 report from NPR explaining the danger that the supervolcano poses:
In Greek and Roman mythology, the Campi Flegrei volcano is depicted as the opening to the underworld. Its prehistoric eruptions blocked out the sun, turning summer into winter and covering Europe and Russia in thick volcanic ash. Now this powerful seismic giant near Naples is stirring again, shaking the ground in a way that scientists say it hasn’t for centuries. …
For everyone to survive an eruption, over half a million people would have to be evacuated from an area that Italian authorities have marked the “red zone” around the Campi Flegrei’s eight-mile wide crater. … [T]here really are no countermeasures to protect yourself from the pyroclastic flow of volcanic particles and ash — super-heated to some 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit — that would cover terrain at a speed between 30 and 60 miles per hour.
And here’s an interesting video from CBS News with more information about that supervolcano:
See you next Friday.