The Adam Mockler Show - This is monstrous.

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

Adam Mockler breaks down growing international backlash after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened legal action against The New York Times and journalist Nicholas Kristof over a report detailing allegations of sexual abuse against Palestinians inside Israeli detention systems. As human rights groups, journalists, and former detainees continue speaking out, critics say the aggressive attempt to suppress reporting is only drawing more attention to the accusations themselves. Click below for premium Adam Mockler content 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@adammockler/join 👉 https://adammockler.com/subscribe JOIN THE COMMUNITY: Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AdamMockler/ Discord: https://discord.gg/y9yzMU3Gff Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adammockler/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/adammockler.com/ Twitter: https://x.com/adammocklerr/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adammockler Contact: [e-mail] Business inquiries: [e-mail] Adam Mockler - Mockler Media LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and will generate more than $15.5 billion in industrial value for Canada. This ad is sponsored by the F-35 partner team, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman and RTX. Learn more at www.f35.com dot com slash Canada. All right, they really do not want us talking about this article from Nicholas Christoph, which is exactly why we're going to make an entire video talking about it. Everybody from Netanyahu himself to every single neo-conservative in the right-wing media

has been telling people to stop talking about the New York Times article that highlights sexual violence, the rape of Palestinians committed by IDF soldiers and rogue Israelis. Male and female Palestinians describe brutal sex abuse. at the hands of Israel's prison guards, soldiers, settlers, and interrogators. There seems to be almost a systematic allowance and cover-up of this type of sexual violence. We have seen multiple people who raped Palestinian prisoners then be released from prisons in Israel after people protest outside those prisons. I want to be very, very clear here.

If you're somebody who condemned the horrific sexual violence that was committed against Israelis on October 7th, which you absolutely should have, then you need to have moral consistency and not suddenly pretend that there's not sexual violence going on on the other side as well. This is very real, this is a very real situation, and Netanyahu was already talking about

launching lawsuits against the New York Times. It's quite literally just the Trump playbook. Trump launched a massive lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal for their Epstein article, which he didn't like. It was a $10 billion lawsuit that ended up getting shot down altogether because it was bunk.

Then, Cash Patel got this alcohol article written about him in the Atlantic. He immediately launched a massive lawsuit. It will likely also be shot down in a very similar way. When Benjamin Netanyahu is writing crazy rogue tweets about how he might sue the New York Times and Nicholas Christoph, the journalist, I'm sorry, I'm not buying it. I do not believe a single word coming out of Netanyahu's mouth. and I do believe the 15 accounts that were, you know, completely vetted in this story. So all of this is to say, I want to read through some really harrowing parts of this article.

I want to highlight it and use my platform to talk about it. And I also want to talk about the reaction, the attempt to suppress it, the attempt to tell everybody to be quiet from Netanyahu and other neocons. If you appreciate this work, you can subscribe below and drop a like. But let's jump directly in to Netanyahu's statement. He said, today, I instructed my legal advisors. to consider the harshest legal action against the New York Times and Nicholas Christoph. They defame the soldiers of Israel and perpetuated a blood libel about rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel's Valley and soldiers.

Oh my God. Like I said, moral consistency is necessary here. When I read this New York Times article, I want every single person who's listening to understand that these are vetted sources. I want every single person who called out the horrific October 7th rapes to apply that same sort of moral consistency here. To continue, they defame the soldiers of Israel, perpetuated a blood libel. Under my leadership, Israel will not be silent. We will fight these lies. In the court of public opinion and in the court of law, truth will prevail. You know, Brian Stelter on CNN pointed out something interesting. In this last line here, Netanyahu puts the court of

public opinion before and above the court of law. He says, we will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law, almost showing that he values the propaganda victory more than ever actually launching a lawsuit. In fact, he only said at the top he's going to consider the harshest legal action against the New York Times and Nicholas Christoph. He's trying to create the same type of chilling effect that Donald Trump creates when he threatens the media, threatens colleges, threatens law firms, all of this is now translating over to Netanyahu, which he does in his own country as well, but he's now attacking the New York Times. Medi Hassan quote tweets this and says,

a government that ludicrously tries to sue a foreign paper rather than grant unfettered access to foreign reporters and UN investigators to its prisons or even launch its own internal investigations to clear its innocent troops. This is a very good point from Medi Hassan. There has been a systematic repression of certain journalists in Israel, whether they're foreign journalists or domestic journalists, an inability to actually cover what's going on in the West Bank in Gaza and in these prisons.

There have been journalists who have not been allowed into these prisons, not been allowed in certain areas, which should hint towards a lot, right? So rather than actually allow transparency and oversight, the Israeli government decides to attack the press. It kind of reminds me of the detention centers that were being used to hold migrants, and the government would attack the press rather than actually allowing oversight into these detention centers. Let's jump over here to the actual article itself from Nicholas Christoph.

I'm not going to read the entire thing, but I think it's worth really diving into the article that Trump does not want you to read. And then we'll talk about the attacks on this article more. It's a simple proposition. Whatever our views of the Middle East conflict, we should be able to unite in condemning rape. Supporters of Israel made that point after the brutal sexual assaults against Israeli women during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7th. Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, many U.S. senators, including Marco Rubio, condemned that sexual violence, and rightfully so. Yet, in wrenching interviews, Palestinians have recounted to me a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence

against men, women, and even children by soldiers, settlers, interrogators, and the shin-bet internal security agencies, and, above all, prison guards. There is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes, but in recent years, they have built a security apparatus where sexual violence has become, as the United Nations report put it last year, one of Israel's standard operating procedures and, quote, a major element in the ill-treatment of Palestinians. A report out last month from the EuroMed Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based advocacy group, often critical of Israel, concludes that Israel employs, quote, systematic sexual violence that is, quote, widely practiced as part of an organized state policy.

This is monstrous. This is disgusting. What does a standard operating procedure look like? Sammy Al-Sai, 46, a freelance journalist, says that as he was being taken to a prison cell after his attention in 2024, a group of guards threw him to the ground. I should have issued a trigger warning a few minutes ago, but from here on out, a major trigger warning as I continue to read. Quote, they were all hitting me. In one stepped on my head and neck, he said. Someone pulled my pants down. They pulled down my boxers.

And then one of the guards pulled out a rubber baton used to beat prisoners. Quote, they were trying to force it into my rectum. And I was bracing myself to prevent it, but I couldn't, he said, speaking with increasing anxiety. It was so painful. The guards were laughing at him, he heard. He said, then he heard someone say, give me the carrots, he recalled, adding that they then used a carrot. It was extremely painful, he said. I was praying for death.

Al-Sai was blindfolded, he said, and heard someone say in Hebrew, which he understands, don't take photos. That suggested to him that someone had pulled out a camera or phone. One of the guards was a woman, he said, who grabbed him by the penis and testicles and joked, these are mine, then squeezed them until he screamed in pain. The guards left him handcuffed on the ground, and he smelled cigarette smoke. I realized it was their smoking break, he said.

After he was dumped into his cell, he concluded that the spot where he had been raped had been used before, for he found other people's vomit, blood, and broken teeth crushed into his skin. Like when he realized into his skin, there was like vomit, blood, and broken teeth. Al-Sai said that he had been asked to become an informant for Israeli intelligence,

and he believed that the purpose of his arrest and imprisonment under the administrative detention system was to pressure him to agree. Because he prided himself on journalistic professionalism, he said, he refused. It says, I've had a career covering war, genocide, and atrocities, including rape, sometimes in places where the scale of sexual violence is far greater than anything committed by either Hamas militants or Israeli guards or settlers. In the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia a few years ago, 100,000 women have been raped. Mass rape is now unfolding in Sudan.

Yet our American tax dollars subsidized the Israeli security establishment. So this is sexual violence in which the United States is complicit. I became interested in reporting on sexual assaults against Palestinian prisoners after Issa Amro, a nonviolent activist sometimes called the Palestinian Gandhi, told me when I previously visited that he had been sexualized. sexually assaulted by Israeli soldiers and that he believed this was common but underreported because of shame By one count Israel has detained 20,000 people in the West Bank alone since October 7th and more than 9,000 Palestinians were still being held as of this month. Many have not been charged but are still being

held. Israeli forces systematically employ rape and sexual torture to humiliate Palestinian female detainees. The Euromet report said. It cited a 42-year-old woman who said she had been shackled naked to a metal table as Israeli soldiers forcibly had sex with her over two days, while other soldiers filmed the attacks. Afterwards, she said she was shown photos of her being raped, and they said they would be published if she did not cooperate with Israeli intelligence. It's impossible to know how common sexual assaults against Palestinians are. Nicholas Christoph says,

My reporting for this article is based on conversations with 14 men and women who said they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces. He spoke to family members, investigators, officials, and others. Save the Children had commissioned a survey last year of children, age 12 to 17, who had been in Israeli detention, more than half-reported witnessing or experiencing sexual violence. Save the Children, said that the true figure was probably higher because stigma left some unwilling to acknowledge what happened to them. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a respected American organization, surveyed 59 Palestinian journalists who had been released by Israeli all. authorities, 3% say they had been raped, 29% said they had endured other forms of sexual violence. At this point, I want to jump over to some of the statements that the New York Times

communications have made to follow up with this article after this entire backlash from right-wing neocons. They said yesterday, quote, Nicholas Christoph's deeply reported piece starts with a proposition to readers. Whatever our views of the Middle East conflict, we should be able to unite in condemning rape. He draws together on the record accounts and cites several analyses documenting the practice of sexual violence and abuse conducted by various parts of Israel's security forces and settlers. The accounts of the 14 men and women he interviewed were corroborated with other witnesses whenever possible and with the victims confided in. People the victims confided in. That includes family members and lawyers. Details were extensively fact-checked with

accounts further cross-referenced with news reporting. More people began to cast out on it. David Shuster said, I'm hearing from longtime friends that they're thinking about retracting the story. New York Times had to come out themselves and say, there is no truth to this at all. Nicholas Christoph is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who is reported on sexual violence for decades and is widely regarded as one of the world's best on the ground reporters documenting and bearing witness to sexual abuse experienced by women and men in war and conflict zones. He traveled to the region to report firsthand on the stories of Palestinians who suffered abuse in his article collects accounts in the victim's own words backed by independent studies.

as we've been reading thus far. The Israeli government rejects suggestions that it sexually abused Palestinians, just as Hamas denied raping Israeli women. Israel's Ministry of National Security declined comment on this matter. The Palestinians he interviewed recounted various kinds of abuse beyond rape.

Many had their genitals yanked or were beaten on the testicles. Handheld metal detectors were used to probe between men's naked legs and then smash into their private parts. Some men had to have their testicles amputated doctors after beatings according to the EuroMed Monitor. What an absurdly horrific, monstrous story.

One reason these abuses don't receive more attention is threats by Israeli authorities who periodically warn prisoners on release to keep quiet, according to Palestinians who have been freed. Another reason, Palestinian survivors told me, is that Arab society discourages discussing the topic for fear of hurting the morale of prisoners' families and undermining the Palestinian narrative of defiant and, heroic detainees. It actually makes sense. If there are currently thousands of Palestinians still being held in Israeli prisons, you don't really want to come back and talk about how much rape is happening, especially when you're talking to the families of these people. So there is a stigma or a sort of

morale aspect to this. Conservative social norms also inhibit discussion. Two victims told me that a prisoner who acknowledges being raped would harm the ability of his sisters and daughters to find husbands. One farmer initially agreed to let me use his name in the article, released early this year after months in the administrative detention with no charges filed, he related what happened to him one day last year. A half dozen guards immobilized him by holding his arms and legs while pulling down his pants and underwear and inserting a metal baton into his anus. The rapists were laughing and cheering, he said.

Several hours later, he said he fainted and was taken to the prison clinic. After he woke up, he was raped once more, again with the metal baton. Quote, I was bleeding, he recalled. I broke down completely. I was crying. After being returned to his cell, he said. He asked a guard for pen and paper to write a complaint about the assaults. Request was denied, and that evening, a group of guards came to sell. Who is the one that wants to file a complaint? One guard jeered, he said, and another began pointing him out. The beating started immediately, he recalled, and then they raped him

with a baton for a third time that day. He recalled one saying, now you, one of them said to him, now you have even more to put in your report. A few days after I interviewed him, the farmer called me to say that he didn't want his name used after all. He had just been visited by Shinbet and warned not to cause trouble. He also feared that his family would react badly to the attention. Rampant sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners is a thing. It's been normalized, Sessari Bashi, an Israeli-American human rights lawyer who's the executive director of the public committee against torture in Israel. I don't see evidence that it has been ordered, but there is persistent evidence that authorities know, aren't stopping it, and then cover it up.

Another Israeli lawyer, Ben Marmirelli, told me that based on the experience, the Palestinians he has represented, rape of Palestinian prisoners with objects is going on across the board. Okay, I'm gonna leave the rest of the article in description below. There's still a lot more to cover, and maybe we'll make more videos

and more live streams about this, but this is a very heavy topic. It's a very heavy article to read, and this is very, very heavy stuff. So I really do think we need to be bringing more attention to this, especially at a time when there is a top-down effort from neocons and power and from people like Netanyahu to stop

this sort of coverage, we should double down on this sort of coverage. There shouldn't be a stigma around talking about the crimes that the Israeli government and the guards and the people there are committing. So I will continue to cover this. If you appreciate this coverage, drop a like, subscribe. I'll see you all in the next video and peace.