Even Israel’s Leading Newspaper Is Sounding the Alarm

One of the strangest and most disturbing things about what’s happening in Gaza is how difficult it has become in countries like Australia to even discuss it without being attacked, smeared or accused of extremism. Yet some of the strongest warnings about Israel’s conduct are no longer coming from progressive activists or Arab media. They’re coming from inside Israel itself.

This week, one of Israel’s most respected newspapers Haaretz published a lead editorial condemning Israel’s refusal to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross access to Palestinian detainees in Israeli prison camps. Under the Geneva Conventions, Israel is required to allow Red Cross representatives to visit detainees. Since October 2023, it has refused. That fact alone should alarm every democracy.

Israel originally justified it’s refusal by pointing to Hamas’ denial of access to Israeli hostages held in Gaza. But since the so-called ‘ceasefire’ which accompanied release of the hostages, Israel’s ban on Red Cross inspections has remained in place. So the obvious question is: why? Haaretz points directly at Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. And it argues that conditions inside the detention system have deteriorated to the point of inhumanity.

The allegations are horrifying: torture, starvation, degrading treatment and endemic sexual abuse. Released detainees have described severe beatings, humiliation, near-starvation conditions and rape. The New York Times has reported on some of these allegations. Video footage has also emerged showing abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israeli personnel.

Israel denies the allegations and has dismissed reporting on the issue as defamatory. But if the allegations are false or exaggerated, why refuse independent inspections? That’s a central question. If Israel’s detention facilities comply with international law, then allowing neutral humanitarian observers inside would strengthen its position. Continued refusal instead fuels reasonable and growing suspicion that Israel is hiding something deeply sinister.

Haaretz itself put it bluntly: “A society’s treatment of the people it detains - whether citizens or enemies - is a litmus test of its values and morality.” That sentence matters because it cuts through the tribalism and propaganda that now dominate discussion what’s happening in Gaza, Palestine more broadly, and now Lebanon. Human rights are either universal or they’re meaningless. Prohibition on torture either applies to everyone or it eventually collapses altogether.

And this issue is bigger than Israel. One of the defining features of democratic decline is the gradual normalisation of secrecy, cruelty and impunity. Democracies rarely abandon their values in one dramatic moment. Instead, exceptions ramp up over time. Oversight disappears. Accountability weakens. Entire categories of people become viewed as undeserving of basic rights or dignity. That’s why independent inspection regimes exist in the first place.

Australia routinely condemns authoritarian states when they deny access to detention facilities or refuse independent monitoring of prisoners. We rightly criticise China over Xinjiang and Russia over political prisoners and wartime abuses. But when it comes to Israel, like many governments and media organisations we’re cautious, evasive and silent. Even the ABC, our national broadcaster, appears deeply uncomfortable engaging seriously with allegations that are now being openly debated inside Israel itself.

That silence matters. Because if democratic nations like Australia only defend human rights when it is politically convenient, then those rights stop being universal principles and become little more than geopolitical branding.

Oh, and a reminder: criticising the actions of Israel is not antisemitism. Demanding accountability for the treatment of detainees is not antisemitism or extremism. And neither is upholding international law.