FMEP non resident fellow Peter Beinart is joined by Sari Bashi (Executive Director, Public Committee Against Torture in Israeli) to discuss the dismissal of charges against five Israeli soldiers who were filmed violently abusing and raping Palestinian detainees in the Sde Teiman facility – as well as the torture of Palestinians in Israeli custody more generally.
Resources
- “Israeli military drops charges against soldiers accused of Gaza detainee abuse“ (The Guardian 3/12/26)
Includes this: “Sari Bashi, the executive director of the rights group Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, said: “Israel’s military attorney general just gave his soldiers licence to rape, so long as the victim is Palestinian. “[The decision] is the latest in a long line of actions that whitewash abuses against detainees whose frequency and severity have worsened since 7 October 2023.”’
- Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI)
- B’Tselem: “Sde Teiman is only the tip of the iceberg: Israeli detention centers turned into a network of torture camps for Palestinians”
- B’Tselem’s: “Welcome to Hell”: The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps
Sari Bashi is an internationally renowned human rights lawyer, the former program director of Human Rights Watch, the cofounder of the Israeli human rights organization Gisha, and the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture-Israel (PCATI). She is a graduate of Yale Law School and has previously clerked on the Israeli Supreme Court. She has taught international humanitarian law at Yale Law School and Tel Aviv University. She has also been a Jerusalem correspondent for The Associated Press and has appeared on, and been interviewed by, major English-language outlets. She and Osama (a pseudonym) are married and living in the West Bank.
Peter Beinart is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is also a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, a Contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, an Editor-at-Large at Jewish Currents, and an MSNBC Political Commentator. His newest book (published 2025) is