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.
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.
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.
Update: Al Jazeera later posted the same false poll.
The network deleted the post and it is no longer visible.
