Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) reposted a digitally altered image earlier this week that falsely claimed to show a poll saying Israelis believe soldiers should be allowed to rape Palestinians.
The fake image was called out by users on X (formerly Twitter), including journalist Yashar Ali:
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has retweeted the tweet on the left which contains a digitally altered image.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 8, 2024
That is NOT what the poll question was.
The poll question was do you think the government has surrendered to terrorist supporters?
The authentic poll, in the screenshot… pic.twitter.com/8QRLgvgHu8
Tlaib had reposted a post by Noura Erakat, a pro-Palestinian lawyer and academic. Erakat admitted the mistake, but claimed that the doctored image had seemed credible because of reports of the rape of a Palestinian detainee.
Rep Tlaib trusted me & posting this wo cross checking was my mistake. But surely u understand how one would take this poll to be true in light of video of gang rape of a Palestinian detainee & Knesset + public debate on whether such rape should be ok. THAT is the disgrace, Alex. https://t.co/H3tWWgnXQD
— Noura Erakat (@4noura) August 8, 2024
That story, as Breitbart News has reported, is highly controversial within Israel. A doctor at the Sde Teiman prison reported his concerns about the possible sodomization of a Palestinian terror detainee. When Israeli military investigators arrived to arrest the suspects, they were met by protesters who had broken into the prison.
Later, it emerged that another doctor concluded that the Palestinian detainee’s injuries were inconsistent with rape, and more likely to have been caused by an object the prisoner inserted into his own rectum.
Supporters of the accused soldiers, who are being held in custody pending trial, say that the prisoner had smuggled a cellphone into the detention facility.
Regardless, the story has gone viral within the Arab world, thanks in part to a video that was leaked to Israel’s Channel 12, purporting to show the abuse of the Palestinian detainee. The video, however, is grainy and inconclusive.
Some Israelis are worried that the dozens of Israeli hostages currently held by Hamas could be abused further due to the leak of the video, and the sharing of inflammatory claims of rape and abuse that have not been proven in court.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
