In recent years, the relationship between foreign military occupation and the increased likelihood of violent insurgency and terrorism has been asserted (Pape Reference Pape2005) but is far from proven. The actual micro-level dynamics that make the correlation between the two sufficient to warrant extended discussion is even less understood and has led a variety of researchers to examine the micro-level foundations of how the presence of foreign military personnel might exacerbate conflict or provide motivation for the local population to mobilize against the foreign troops in their midst (e.g., Downes Reference Downes2008; Edelstein Reference Edelstein2008)

While the specifics of why an occupation aggravates terrorism and insurgency can only be addressed by teasing out the individual economic, social, and political strategies that occupiers use and testing their individual effects, the relationship between how an occupation impacts the civilian population, especially the women of the target country, is even less well understood. Although a handful of high profile and newsworthy cases have emerged from Iraq in which American soldiers have been involved in sexual atrocities (for example, the rape and murder of Abir al Janabi) as well as prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib (Associated Press 2007; BBC World News 2006), the systematic harassment and coercion of women during an occupation requires a more nuanced understanding both of the cultures in which the occupiers operate and of what constitutes sexual atrocity in each cultural milieu.

In cases of rape and murder, the violation of the laws of war and criminal codes can lead to action from the international community. However, beyond such clear examples of sexual atrocity, cases of occupation often involve less extreme forms of sexual harassment that encourage the mobilization of the enemy and have long-term and serious impacts on the country's female population.

In this article, I explore the larger phenomenon of sexual humiliation that occurs in cases of ethno-nationalist conflict in which the presence of foreign military personnel can constitute an occupation, and how such abuses can fuel the insurgents' rhetoric and incentivize the population to engage in terrorism.Footnote ¹ Threats to rape women have become routine and systematic, and forced strip searches, exposure of women (who are photographed for future use), exposure or masturbation by soldiers in front of female detainees, and threats to rape male detainees' female relatives in order to coerce and obtain forced confessions all constitute forms of sexual humiliation that have become commonplace in many conflicts besides Iraq. Although these actions fall short of rape in most cases, some cultures construe these methods as forms of rape because of the ways in which their societies understand honor, shame, and chastity. In the cases under review, either ethnic or religious differences between the foreign military troops and the target population exist; in some cases, there are both ethnic and religious differences. In all cases, the fact that the women belong to conservative, patriarchal societies exacerbates the humiliation and allows military tactics to resonate in highly specific ways.

Women in traditional Islamic societies that are under occupation face dual pressures from both foreign military forces, who routinely harass and degrade them, and their own societies, who may challenge their conduct (especially regarding the honor codeFootnote ²) should they be questioned by military or security personnel. The mere presence of a woman alone in a room with a man who is not a relative can have serious repercussions. Aware of this constraint, Israeli occupation forces have used a variety of sexually inappropriate behaviors to their advantage to secure testimony or collaboration from detained Palestinian women.

According to recent human rights reports, the situation for women under occupation comprises physical and psychological risks. Watchdog groups express a “grave concern over the increased difficulties being faced by Palestinian women and girls living under Israeli occupation, including the sharp increase in poverty, soaring unemployment, increased food insecurity, incidents of domestic violence, and declining health in their psychological well-being” (United Nations Commission on the Status of Women 2009).

The extent to which the harassment of women becomes part of the rhetoric for radicalization and mobilization varies. Although defense of women's honor was a lynchpin of al-Qaeda ideology even before the war in Iraq (the al-Qaeda manual captured in Afghanistan in 2001 identifies the humiliation of Muslim women as a cornerstone of Western imperialist policy to humiliate Muslims worldwideFootnote ³), in many situations, the sexual humiliation of women is hardly discussed at all because of the high shame factor. The differences between the cases appear to be the extent to which the atrocity occurs and how visible the alleged crimes are. In other words, al-Qaeda can target their propaganda at Muslims in Europe and the United Kingdom and discuss in general terms the need to protect Muslim women from being raped and sexually mistreated in countries far and wide, because the cases of sexual atrocity tend to be scattered and distant from the areas where the mobilization occurs (e.g., Kashmir, Iraq, and Palestine). It is infinitely more difficult to mobilize a population whose women are being attacked locally because of the constraint of making these crimes known in a society with an honor system that limits their appeal for mobilization.

In Palestine, where sexual atrocities by the occupying forces occur close to home and tight-knit communities are common, the Palestinian honor code overrides any possible benefit of using women's humiliation to inflame a constituency, because of the fear that the community will shun the women who are affected instead of responding to the call to mobilize. Shockingly, no Palestinian political organization, either terrorist group or political party, cites the abuse of women to encourage people to join the resistance. In a conservative society in which relations between men and women are rarely discussed, publicization of the sexual harassment of women is more likely to bring shame upon the family than to serve as a rallying cry for more involvement in the resistance.

It is natural to assume that many of the most heinous sexual atrocities would not be exploited in conservative Islamic societies. Yet al-Qaeda's emphasis on the dangers to Muslim women by Western occupying forces and the rhetoric that followed the brutal attack on Abir al Janabi in Mahmudiya in March 2006, as well as allegations that U.S. soldiers raped and impregnated Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib, demonstrate that under certain conditions, sexual violence can become part of the rhetoric to mobilize people to join the insurgency (Harding Reference Harding2004b).

Far from being kept secret, the attack on al Janabi was the most widely reported event in the Arab press in 2006. Every newspaper and television station carried explicit and detailed descriptions of the young girl's rape and murder and the subsequent cover-up.Footnote ⁴ Al Rafidyan, an Iraqi television station, described the actions of Lieutenants Green and Cortes in detail:

The Turkish newspaper Al Ittihad concluded that it was a double crime, both as premeditated murder and as a violation of human rights when she was raped. The whole spectrum of Iraqi politicians and all members of parliament denounced the attack. A letter to the editor of Al Ittihad ominously concluded, “Abir isn't the first victim and probably will not be the last” (Mahdi Reference Mahdi2006).

Jihadi Web sites exploited the crime to mobilize new supporters throughout the Islamic and Arab world. The Web sites described how the occupiers actions should inspire Muslims to rise up and join the jihad against the nonbelievers:

Jaysh Al Mujahidin, another jihadist group, claimed that it had downed an Apache helicopter in retaliation for Abir's rape.Footnote ⁷ Another insurgent organization named the rockets it used to attack U.S. positions after the little girl. According to a report by Al Jazeera, the insurgent group named “Iraq's Islamic Army” (al Jaish al Islami f'il Iraq) claimed that it was producing 20-kilogram surface-to-air missiles named Abir.

Finally, a new suicide bomber brigade was named after Abir al Janabi under the auspices of the Dhat al Nitayqayn Martyrdom Brigade, the leading female suicide bomber unit in Diyala Province (Mukhtar Reference Mukhtar2008). The attacks at Abu Ghraib and against Abir al Janabi also feature prominently in many of the last will and testaments of Iraqi suicide bombers. Much like Muhammed al Durrah, the young Palestinian boy who was killed in 2000 as his father tried to shield him from crossfire between Palestinian Authority and Israeli forces, Abir has become the poster child of what should be feared most from the occupation and a rallying cry for jihad. Although the number of reported sexual assaults in Iraq remains relatively small compared to other cases in the Sudan or Sierra Leone conflicts, the idea that occupiers are raping Muslim women in the same way that they are raping the land resonates with young Muslim men in Europe and the United Kingdom.

Unlike in Iraq, there are virtually no reports of war rape against Palestinian women in Israel, and no human rights groups have documented any attacks.Footnote ⁸ In fact, the Israeli government has taken to court any sources, including international newspapers, that have alleged that Israeli soldiers rape Palestinian women (Keinon Reference Keinon2001). Instead of the kind of war rape that is evident in cases such as Darfur, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, what is common in the Israel-Palestine cases is a systematic pattern of abuse of women in jail in which other forms of sexual humiliation and the threat of rape occur with regularity.

According to Andrea Dworkin, “The Israeli army … may be the only one in the world routinely to sexually expose themselves and begin to masturbate as a means to disperse Arab women demonstrators or groups of women” (Dworkin Reference Dworkin2000). Dworkin has documented cases of sexual abuse that include public strip searches, constant sexual innuendo, and threats of rape and publication of photographs of Palestinian women being fondled by the security forces in order to obtain confessions. These threats are not only verbal, but also include unwanted touching and even masturbation against a woman. Soldiers also threaten to publicize Photoshopped pornography made of the woman during her captivity (e.g., a female prisoner's head superimposed onto a naked body) to obtain confessions.

In these ways, the occupying forces take advantage of the Arab honor code of conduct, which demands not only that girls be virgins until marriage, but also that they not engage in any behavior that might bring shame upon the family. For all intents and purposes, women in Arab societies are subject to dire consequences if the family's reputation is negatively impacted by any licentious behavior, real or imagined. Instances such as being alone in the presence of a member of the opposite sex or kissing a boy can cause rumors within the community. If the girl's family is traditional and follows the honor system, an Israeli officer's threat to publish a pornographic picture of her may likely lead to a loss of life; if she is raped, she will definitely be killed by members of her own family (Sheely Reference Sheely2007; Jehl Reference Jehl1999).

In many parts of the Arab world, female chastity is seen as the boundary between respect and shame for a family. An unchaste woman, some people say, is even worse than a murderer. For centuries, the result of that harsh, unforgiving code has been death—the killing of girls and women by relatives to cleanse honor that has been soiled. Sometimes, the misconduct is no more than a rumor (Jehl Reference Jehl1999).

During the First Intifada, rumors alleged that the Shabak, the Israeli security services, used sexual violence against Palestinian women and men during interrogation. In their 1994 Human Rights Report, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem did not find corroborating evidence to substantiate claims that this was a codified practice, but they did cite at length a document entitled, “Let the Methods of the Enemy's Security Services Be Exposed.” This document was circulated throughout the territories in the 1980s and described various methods used in isqat (exerting pressure, or blackmail). Among the numerous methods, several relate to the targeting of women for sexual humiliation in order to secure compliance or collaborationFootnote ⁹ (Be'er and Abdel-Jawad Reference Be'er and Abdel-Jawad1994).

Palestinian women are routinely harassed, intimidated, and abused by Israeli soldiers and border police in their homes and at checkpoints. The women are subjected to threats of sexual violence in public spaces to humiliate them in front of their families. Although the actual cases of rape are rare and might be attributed to conditions of access as well as societal taboos, which would stigmatize any Israeli man who had intimate sexual contact with an Arab woman, threats of rape are common. Certainly, Palestinian women are made to fear sexual abuse by both the horror stories that circulate in their communities about what will happen to them if they are imprisoned and the stories that the Israelis deliberately circulate to strike fear in the hearts of any women who find themselves in custody.

Beyond searches, the conflict is pervaded by ethnic chauvinism and sexism. In the town of Hebron, a longstanding center of the conflict, an outside wall of a building has been spray-painted, “Watch out Fatima, we will rape all Arab women.” The Arab women in this area live within one block from the Qiryat 'Arba settlement. It is highly probable that the racist epitaphs come from the settlers.

Such indicators of sexism and racism are not by themselves manifestations of violence. Nevertheless, they provide some perspective on existing attitudes and the extent to which such hate speech is tolerated by Israeli society and especially by the right-wing settler community (although each side accuses the other of hate speech intended to radicalize groups). In addition to graffiti, Israeli soldiers have started to design T-shirts that include blatant sexual messages, show Palestinian women being killed, or include slogans intended to offend Muslim societal norms. A recent article in Israel's newspaper Ha'aretz described these new “fashions,” including a Lavi Battalion T-shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan “Bet you get raped!” and a Golani Brigade T-shirt depicting a soldier raping a Palestinian girl that reads “No virgins, no terror.” One sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked Battalion depicts a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed over her belly, with the slogan in English, “1 shot, 2 kills” (Blau Reference Blau2009).

For many observers of the conflict, harassment at checkpoints and obnoxious T-shirts might seem to be the thin end of the wedge. By themselves, such racist and sexist attitudes are not violent and cannot compare to the systematic rape campaigns in Bosnia and Darfur. After years of occupation, however, these factors impact the civilian population in many ways, some more subtle than others.

In general, Palestinian women are very vulnerable, especially if the military authorities decide to detain them (B'Tselem: Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories 2010). Since 1967, over 700,000 Palestinian men and women have been detained, totaling approximately 20% of the total population within the occupied Palestinian territories. Not all the women in Israeli jails have done anything to warrant being arrested. Some Palestinian female prisoners are arrested as a means of putting pressure on their husbands to either refrain from partaking in activities that may be perceived by the Israelis as threatening to the occupation or to turn themselves in for crimes they may or may not have committed. Other times, women are arrested as a coercive means to extract information about their male relatives or to coerce them to provide information to the authorities in the future. Finally, some women are arrested as a result of their involvement in militant and terrorist organizations. Again, this group is in the minority (Women's Organization for Political Prisoners 2010). Although women are only a small percentage of those arrested, they appear to be treated in a manner consistent with the treatment of men, and they are subjected to inhumane treatment and psychological and physical torture.

Israeli authorities willingly use interrogation methods that constitute torture. “Methods include prolonged hooding, beating all parts of the body including the testicles, threats of rape, banging on the prisoner's head, spitting on his face, forcing the prisoner to sit on a plastic tapered box, and faking threats to sexually attack the prisoner's family in the next room” (Cohen and Golan Reference Cohen and Golan1991). In a testimony recorded by B'Tselem, a prisoner reported spending every day between interrogation sessions either in the cupboard or closet (khazana) or tied up outside. “In addition to the beatings, he was continually humiliated and threatened (told, for example, that [the soldiers] would rape his sister and that his mother was pregnant from an Israeli Shabak agent)” (Cohen and Golan Reference Cohen and Golan1991, 44).

The prisoner rights organization “Women for Support of Women Political Prisoners” has published a number of testimonies about the detention and interrogation of women in the “Moscobiya,” a detention center in Jerusalem known as the Russian Compound (Levi Reference Levi1990). The treatment of women does not differ significantly from the treatment of prisoners described previously. Reports include the prolonged use of “al-Shabah,” a method in which a sack is placed on the detainee's head and her hands are tied to a railing behind her back or above her head; and the “khazana” (Arabic for cupboard), a method in which the prisoner is placed for hours (some allege for more than a day) in a cell measuring no more than 100 cm by 80 cm. As a result, the prisoner cannot stand upright or straighten her legs while sitting. The cell is filthy, and the prisoner is denied access to basic facilities. The women allege that they have been beaten and encountered sexual harassment, including threats of rape and sexual insults (Cohen and Golan Reference Cohen and Golan1991, 31).

Citing a UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) report from July 2009, Addameer, the Palestinian human rights organization that oversees and protects prisoners' rights, maintained that the treatment of female Palestinian prisoners was particularly brutal and had not improved in the 18 years since B'Tselem's report in 1991 (Addameer, Prisoner's Support and Human Rights Association 2009). In addition to violating women's modesty under the Palestinian honor code, the report further describes a systematic pattern of abuse of female prisoners in Israeli jails. Palestinian women who are pregnant and due to give birth are routinely incarcerated. The women are allowed to keep their children with them for the first few years; however, pregnant detainees do not receive any consideration for their condition or any preferential treatment in terms of diet (e.g., folic acid, prenatal vitamins) or medical care. In fact, all of the women in the jails suffer from malnutrition because even their most basic dietary needs are not addressed.

According to the Addameer report, “Israeli investigators continue to systematically threaten Palestinian female prisoners in a manner that perpetuates gender-based violence that is founded on the perception of women as inferior to men” (Addameer, Prisoner's Support and Human Rights Association 2009). Officers threaten younger women with rape during the initial phase of the investigation to force them to provide information or plead guilty to a crime they may or may not have committed. They also strip-search female prisoners, a practice that is not used against Israeli criminal prisoners. In cases in which Palestinian prisoners have refused to comply, they have been tied up and forcibly stripped of their clothing. Finally, the majority of Palestinian women in Israeli detention are subjected to torture, beatings, insults, threats, and sexual harassment (Daily Star 2009).

There are approximately 63 female political prisoners in Israeli jails, mostly in Hasharon Prison in Tel Mond and Damoon Prison in the Carmel. Some of these women are as young as 14 (Women's Organization for Political Prisoners 2009). The situation in Iraqi prisons is worse. The abuse of Iraqi detainees is widespread and constitutes torture according to the Geneva Conventions. The Red Cross has documented a number of “serious violations of humanitarian law,” including beatings and prolonged solitary confinement, occurring not just in Abu Ghraib, but throughout Iraq. The International Committee for the Red Cross stated that prisoners are beaten, sometimes to death, and that American soldiers fire on unarmed prisoners from watchtowers and kill them (BBC World News 2004).Footnote ¹⁰

A variety of abuses inside the CIA's overseas prisons emerged following the leak in August 2009 of a Justice Department report, including soldiers' threats to sexually assault members of a detainee's family, staging of mock executions, and intimidation with a handgun or power drill. According to eyewitness testimony used to indict Charles A. Graner, an American soldier who tortured prisoners:

Less well known was the situation that Iraqi women faced in Abu Ghraib. The abuse of Iraqi women at Abu Ghraib was detailed in several reports in the London Guardian, sparked by a note allegedly smuggled out by a woman named Noor. The women were kept separately from most of the men, in cellblock 1A, but with 19 high-value male detainees. They were forced to remain in solitary confinement 23 hours a day and were routinely strip-searched in front of the male guards. Noor claimed that American guards raped female detainees and that several of the women became pregnant. The note ended with a call to bomb the jail, to “spare the women further shame” (Harding Reference Harding2004b).

An Iraqi human rights organization pieced together what happened to the women at Abu Ghraib during the group's investigation of abuse. Not surprisingly, few Iraqi women wanted to discuss their ordeal, but the conclusion that Amal Kadham Swadi, an Iraqi lawyer representing the detainees, reached was that the pattern of abuse was rampant. According to one eyewitness, gang rape was common. Swadi's report details one woman's experience: “Several American soldiers had raped her. She tried to fight them off and they had hurt her arm. She showed us the stitches. She told us, we have daughters and husbands. For God's sake don't tell anyone about this” (Harding Reference Harding2004b).

Huda Shaker, a political scientist at Baghdad University, confirmed that women in Abu Ghraib were sexually abused and raped. Shaker herself encountered sexual abuse at U.S. checkpoints. An American soldier pointed the laser sight of his gun at her breasts, then pointed to his penis and said, “Come here, bitch, I'm going to f*&^ you” (Harding Reference Harding2004a).

According to the New Yorker, which first broke the Abu Ghraib story and published the now infamous photos, the remaining photos and videos that have not yet been released by the Pentagon show American soldiers “having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner” and raping male detainees with tubes, truncheons, or other objects (Gardham and Cruikshank Reference Gardham and Cruikshank2009). The report by General Antonio Taguba on the scandal confirmed that U.S. guards videotaped and photographed naked female prisoners and that “a male MP (military police) guard” is shown “having sex with a female detainee” (Gardham and Cruikshank Reference Gardham and Cruikshank2009). Guards videotaped and photographed the women and forced them to bare their breasts at gunpoint. Allegations of rape and abuse were included in Taguba's 2004 report, but the photographs were never publicly revealed. Taguba confirmed that the allegations in Noor's note were accurate (Harding Reference Harding2004b), saying, “The pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency. The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it” (Gardham and Cruikshank Reference Gardham and Cruikshank2009).

The existence of photographs of abuse of female detainees and underaged children provoked outrage throughout Iraq. Some of the women involved mysteriously disappeared (Gardham and Cruikshank Reference Gardham and Cruikshank2009). Noor's family may have killed her because of the honor code. According to internal U.S. memos, many of the women who were attacked by U.S. soldiers committed suicide to avoid the shame and stigma. The Islamic Clerical Board in Iraq “confirmed that Iraqi female prisoners who were raped at the hands of their U.S. Capturers have committed suicide in shame for their defilement” (McKelvey Reference McKelvey2005).

Such deliberate abuses of women during conflict fall more easily into the categorization of sexual atrocity during war, whereas the subtle forms of sexual humiliation may not be considered on the same level and with the same seriousness as systematic rape campaigns (Bloom Reference Bloom2010); however, it is important to understand the subtle forms of harassment and pressure that women under occupation face. Both men and women in Iraq face not only actual rape, but also the constant threat of rape. In two completely separate accounts of their experiences at Abu Ghraib, both Abdallah Bin Al Mubarak and Abu Sulayman discussed how they were threatened with rape and the rape of their wives and daughters.Footnote ¹¹ Posting their experiences on Jihadi Web sites, they warned against the American interrogators' tricks: “They put you in a room and make you listen to the voice of a woman screaming as if she is being raped. They then tell you, it is your wife being raped by American soldiers; so confess.” In reality, the voice belongs to one of the female translators.Footnote ¹²

In both cases, the mobilization of women into violent action followed progressively after the abuses. Among the Palestinians, women moved from supporting men during the First Intifada to becoming involved as front-line activists, planning operations and acting as quartermasters and suicide bombers in the Second Intifada. In Iraq, although the number of women involved was initially low, the 400% increase of female suicide bombers in 2008 and the use of female bombers by conservative Salafi organizations indicates the beginning of a more common trend. It is clear that targeting the women of an occupied country has long-term societal effects that contribute to their mobilization into violence. The ways in which women have been targeted can be obvious (such as in Iraq) or subtle, as in Palestine, where there is an expectation that women will engage in resistance against the Israeli occupation.

An understanding of the cultural contexts in which women live is needed, especially in societies in which sexual codes of conduct are strict and threats of sexual humiliation will resonate in the same way that actual rape does. Outraging the male population and creating incentives for women to become more radicalized and involved in terrorism are precisely the reverse of what any military force hopes to achieve for security. Moreover, if women are crucial in the development of civil society, a conclusion that has been demonstrated around the globe and substantiated by research on the positive role of civil society in conflict-ridden regions (Varshney Reference Varshney2003), then it is imperative that women not be targeted in ways that will make these roles more difficult to achieve. Imprisoning women will radicalize them in a variety of ways. Imprisonment creates incentives for people to join a terrorist movement if they have not already and encourages them to become more involved in the movement if they have previously been on the periphery, and, if the prison authorities use sexual humiliation techniques, the likelihood of violence is exponential. It is also likely that single, formally imprisoned women will not be marriageable when they emerge and will fall into the hands of terrorist organizations. Occupation forces must become aware that the imprisonment, harassment, and torture of women will likely be used as cannon fodder for terrorist organizations to recruit more fighters and will increase the likelihood of women joining the resistance movements. To decrease the probability of recruitment and calm the rhetoric used in mobilization, occupation forces must treat the women under their jurisdiction with the decency that a free society expects women to have and provide the women with incentives to steer clear of joining the ranks of militant or terrorist organizations.