Sex and the army (in Israel)

We have heard much about Abu Ghraib prison and the photos of a sexual nature soldiers took of its inmates.

I found it interesting to come across a series of photographs that in certain respects resemble those infamous ones. They appear, however, to have been taken voluntarily and they depict Israeli soldiers in the nude:

http://video2.xtube.com/watch_video.php?v_user_id=playb&idx=5&v=u711Z-C425-&cl=IJdXG-C425-&from=&ver=3&ccaa=1&qid=&qidx=&qnum=&preview_flag

Whether these photos are truly pornographic is arguable. They certainly have been compiled for and posted on a gay porn site. This may be one of the rare cases in which porn still sparks a political discussion (see comments section on the page).

While some people claim the pictures to be fake, they look real enough to me (on most shots I find it impossible to spot whether the guys are circumcised or not, which seems to be the point of contention). There are Hebrew letters on the vehicles, an Israeli flag, and Hebrew inscriptions on some men's asses.

The apparent racial mix of at least two of the pictures may have led some commentators to assume that they must have been taken in Europe. However, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews did emigrate to Israel from North Africa and are of darker skin, and even the presence of a young black guy may rather confirm authenticity – African Jews belonging to the Beta Israel community (Falashas) in Ethiopia, which claims descent from King Solomon and the legendary Queen of Sheba, came to Israel during periods of civil war and famine in the 1980s and 90s and by now number around 120,000 in their new country.

On the story of the Falashas, see also the remarkable French film of 2005 "Va, vis et deviens" (English title: "Live and Become") about an Ethiopian boy who is passed off by his impoverished Christian mother and her Jewish friend as the latter's son so he can get to grow up and live in Israel. Soon after their arrival, his Falasha care mother dies and he is adopted by a white Jewish family. He struggles to keep his secret. He serves in the army. Twenty years later he is reunited with his birth mother when working as a doctor in a refugee camp in Africa.

The film won the Cesar (French Oscar) for Best Screenplay, as well as the Audience Award and the European Cinema Award at the Berlin Film Festival, the Audience Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Golden Swan (Best Film) at the Copenhagen International Film Festival, the Jury Prize (Best Film) and the Audience Award at the Valenciennes Film Festival, and many more prizes.

Just as a Christian Ethiopian may fight hard to resemble a Falasha to escape poverty, and sexually liberated soldiers may photograph Muslim prisoners in positions akin to those that they photograph themselves in for a laugh, very little is as clear cut as we are (mis)led to believe.