Dark abyss: How Israeli settler society became a sanctuary for rapists, pedophiles

By Humaira Ahad

Israel is again in the news for all the wrong reasons. However, this time, it is not about the genocide of Palestinians. The regime officials and religious leaders are at the centre of the sexual abuse scandal.

A recent incident of incest involving Israel’s minister of illegal settlements, Orit Strook, shocked the world. Strook, a member of the far-right Jewish Power Party and a staunch supporter of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, was accused by her daughter, Shoshana Strook, of incest.

Shoshana has filed a police complaint in Italy, claiming sexual assault by her parents and a brother.

“Hi, I wanted to share something after a long time of carrying it with me. My name is Shoshana Strook, and I was sexually abused as a child by both of my parents. The sexual assault was filmed, which means it was used for child pornography,” the young woman said in a video shared on social media on April 10.

It is not the family’s first such controversy. Orit Strook’s son, Zviki Strook, had been charged with kidnapping and torturing a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in 2007.

Shockingly, incest is common in Israeli settler society, and many such cases have been reported in the media over the last several years. More cases continue to emerge.

According to the 2023 report by The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, the most common type of sexual offence complaint was incest, representing 36 percent of all complaints.

“When looking at complaints made about crimes against children, 70 percent were about incest,” the report stated, raising alarm.

In 2012, Dr. Zivya Seligman, an expert specializing in sexual trauma, told an Israeli court that she found the phenomenon of incest affects one in seven people in the occupied territories.

The court was at the time hearing a case of three sisters who were repeatedly raped by their father for 21 years without anyone hearing their pleas.

(Un)holy men and sexual abuse

A Dallas-based Israeli rabbi who publicly spread false claims about Hamas raping Israeli women on October 7, 2023, was arrested earlier this month for sexually abusing a teenage boy.

According to court records, Rabbi Yizhak Meir Sabo, 43, was charged with indecency with a child. The abuse reportedly occurred while the student was in grades 9-12.

Rabbi Menachem Yaveh, 51, was arrested last year on the charges of leading a cult in occupied Jerusalem Al Quds and sexually abusing boys who were part of the cult.

One of the witnesses of the sexual assault said, "Yaveh was allowed to do anything, including the most despicable acts written in the Torah.”

“You know you mustn't tell this to anyone in your life because something could happen to you. This is something I did purely with you and for you, something that I don't do with anyone," another sexual assault victim of Yaveh was quoted as saying.

The victims said that Yaveh used verses from the Torah to justify his horrendous actions.

In 2022, an indictment was filed against Rabbi Moshe Yazdi for rape, sodomy and indecent assault by several women who accused the religious preacher of sexual assault.

He obtained consent for the illegal acts by assuring the victims that he “was cleansing them of past sins.”

In 2022, Chaim Walder, a right-wing children’s author committed suicide after he was accused of multiple accounts of sexual assault and rape, including against minors.

In 2021, the founder of an Israeli rescue organisation, ZAKA, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, was accused of paedophilia and necrophilia. Meshi-Zahavhad received the Israel Prize’s Lifetime Achievement award for his contributions to Israeli settler society. 

In 2017, Israeli Rabbi Ezra Sheinberg confessed to sexually assaulting women and young girls who came to him for advice and counseling.

Sheinberg was a popular Kabbalist, a respected figure in Israel’s religious community, and the author of several books on Torah ideas.

The Rabbi raped the women convincing the victims that it was a solution to their problems. Sheinberg dubbed the assault as “relaxation.”

Shocking details of sexual abuse

In a recent investigation carried out by an Israeli daily, Israel Hayom, young girls narrated tales of organized sexual abuse they suffered at religious ceremonies.

“Emunah (name changed) recounted the horrific abuse she suffered as a child, organized sexual abuse, including horrifying religious ceremonies in which devout people—some of them her relatives—offered her as a sacrificial victim for spiritual elevation or redemption.”

“These acts were kept secret for years, maybe because of how insane they are… Strange things were happening, normalized through ritual. There was a schedule—when to say which verse, how things were ‘supposed’ to be done…,” Emunah recalled.

According to various reports, Israeli women face sexual abuse regularly. Some are abused in educational settings, others at home, and some in religious schools or synagogues.

“It’s always a dark place. There are six to nine men. They tie my hands and feet to a bed, stand in a circle, and mutter prayers or blessings, and there’s always a rabbi leading it. There’s a ritual—and each one rapes me,” Ayelet, another sexual assault victim was quoted as saying.

“Blessed is He who releases the forbidden,” the rabbi added.

Dr. Naama Goldberg, CEO of an Israeli NGO, “Not Standing By – Supporting Women in Prostitution”, narrated horrific details of sexual abuse.

“Sometimes the stories are so shocking, you question the speaker’s credibility. But since so many similar reports come from unrelated victims across Israel, it seems they’re grounded in reality,” Goldberg said.

“Most of the women we met come from religious or ultra-Orthodox communities, though secular testimonies also exist. This is not about one sector—it’s about some of the worst crimes imaginable happening in a hidden, parallel world that looks invisible but is very dark. Several rabbis’ names appear repeatedly in the testimonies. Multiple complaints filed across Israel were closed quickly. Even past suspicions of an organized abuse network in Jerusalem were met with police investigators lacking the tools or knowledge to act effectively.”

Corrine, whose daughter Eden was sexually abused, blamed the Israeli colonial system for promoting such crimes against women.

“There’s a whole community covering this up. Many people have things to hide. Eden talked about six men who raped her and they all kept it secret. You can’t fight a whole community.”

 “Not Fringe People (respected individuals in the society). I remember a red pentagram on the floor. When it was in the forest, it was marked with a hoe and surrounded by lit candles. The rabbi would say: ‘Blessed is He who releases the forbidden.’ Men would pray with prayer shawls. Sometimes they wore black, and the rabbi wore a white robe,” Eden narrated the chilling details.

“There were men and teens, about 16–17 years old, who participated in the rituals for spiritual elevation. They prayed to Baal Peor. Once, they asked me to dig a hole and lay me in it. Other times, they injected me with something and said, ‘Now you’ll feel better,’ and my body went limp. They repeated Psalms like ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.’ They told me, ‘You’re special, you’re chosen,’ and then… I remember a lulav, Hanukkah candles, a shofar.”  

Dr. Anat Gur, psychotherapist and expert in trauma treatment, head of the Bar-Ilan University trauma therapy program said, “Organized child rape is one of the most horrific things I’ve encountered. It’s likely much more widespread than we think. It’s happening in places we least expect.”

A senior religious community therapist noted that the abusers are often not fringe figures.

“One patient told me, ‘Understand—he’s the one who blows the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.’ The shofar is a spiritual symbol—the one blowing it is meant to be closest to God. And he told her she was evil and that he was helping her atone in this life. Do you grasp the distortion?”

Israel, a safe haven for pedophiles

On April 10, Israeli media reported that Itay Levy, CEO of the cyber company Cornelius, had been arrested on suspicion of committing serious sexual offenses against children.

According to the findings discovered so far, there are at least 5 victims, all children under the age of 4.

Tens of thousands of paedophiles operate in the occupied territories, leading to about 100,000 victims annually, Matzof Association, an Israeli paedophile monitoring organization, reported.

Eliran Malki, head of the Matzof said, "They are not deterred by the police and certainly not deterred by the contemptuous rulings that come from the hands of judges in the various courts," Malki cited an incident in which one particular paedophile was let off by the courts without punishment, despite evidence of thousands of paedophilic items found on his computer, as the court stated that it would "harm his career."

In 2023, Jewish Community Watch (JCW), an American organization that tracks paedophiles, said that 32 paedophiles in their database have moved from countries around the world to the Israeli-occupied territories over the past decade. 

The most notable case was that of Malka Leifer, the principal at the right-wing Adass Israel School in Melbourne from 2003 to 2008. She fled to the Israeli occupied territories after it was known that she sexually abused students. She was accused of sexually abusing more than 70 children. 

Another paedophile, Jimmy Julius Karow, fled from the US to the Israeli-occupied territories in 2000 after being accused of sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl in Oregon. Karow was able to remain there for several years as an absconder.

A CBS News investigation found that many accused American paedophiles flee to the Israeli-occupied territories, and bringing them to justice can be difficult. 

According to JCW figures, more than 60 paedophiles fled from there in 2020. JCW said the actual number is likely much larger, as the organisation lacks resources to identify them.

In 2001, Mordechai Yomtov, an American Hebrew teacher, was arrested and charged with committing lewd acts with three of his students, ranging in age from 8 to 10.

Yomtov served time in US jail and was released on probation. Once free, he violated his probation by fleeing to Israel.JCW tracked him down and confronted him in Jerusalem with a hidden camera.

Bryan Singer, the Hollywood director known for X-Men, is facing allegations of sexual assault involving minors. Despite criminal charges, he has been living a comfortable life in Israel.

The Jewish Independent reported that many sex offenders, including MalkaLeifer, find refuge in ultra-Orthodox settlements in the occupied West Bank.

According to a 2023 report by The Times of Israel, the illegal settlements have been known to harbor individuals accused of sexual offenses for an extended period.

Institutionalizing sexual violence

Records show that the Israeli regime has institutionalized illegal sexual relations to fulfil its nefarious settler-colonial designs in the occupied territories. 

For its notorious intelligence agency, Mossad, Sexpionage is an “ethical” tool to lure people to gather intelligence. Israeli rabbis have even gone to the extent of deeming sex with enemies as “kosher” for female secret agents.

Analysts contend that Jeffrey Epstein, who was charged with sex trafficking of underage girls, among other offences, collected “dirt” on his powerful friends for spy agencies, primarily Mossad. 

Last month, Infowars website lead reporter Jamie White was killed under mysterious circumstances two days after the network ran an extensive expose on the links between Mossad and the sex trafficking ring run by Epstein.

The Zionist regime’s systematic use of sexual abuse has permeated deep into Israeli society.

In August last year, an Israeli regime soldier who had sexually assaulted a Palestinian detainee was invited on television shows and glorified for the inhuman act.

He was applauded and treated like a celebrity after the sodomy case came to light.

Degeneration of Israeli settler society

A 2024 report published by ARCCI reveals shocking data regarding instances of sexual abuse and sexual harassment in the Israeli settler society over the past year.

According to the ARCCI report, 59 percent of complaints received by crisis centres involved harm to minors under 18, and 28 percent involved victims under the age of 12.

In a Knesset report, nearly 5,000 of the reported 8,508 sexual abuse cases in the Israeli-occupied territories in 2019-20 involved victims aged 17 and under.

The 2024 report mentioned that the next most common offence after incest was rape, composing 28 per cent of complaints.

In 11 percent of complaints made to the ARCCI, the offender was the victim’s parent; in 25 percent of cases, it was another relative, and in nearly 20 percent of complaints, the perpetrator was a friend or acquaintance of the victim.

The report also revealed that 81 percent of sexual assault and harassment complaints were closed without an indictment being filed. 

“One in three women continues to experience sexual violence, one in five children faces abuse daily, and one in six men is assaulted”

In November 2024, the Jerusalem Post newspaper reported that 91 percent of complaints against police officers are dismissed without indictment.

The majority of people imprisoned for sexual crimes are released before completing their full sentence, according to an ARCCI report.

Inside police departments across the Israeli occupied territories, more than half of all complaints about sexual offences committed by police officers were not investigated, and 87 percent of the cases opened were later closed without charges.

ARCCI Director-General Orit Sulitzeanusaid that in the year 2023, there were 133 complaints made about sexual crimes committed by regime’s police officers, and two-thirds of those were closed without any investigation.

Exposing the deep moral degeneration, Sulitzeanu said the Israeli settler society is “a society bathed in sexual violence, and women pay a difficult and heavy price for it.”

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