When Systematic Rape Becomes a Punchline

The incident on the red carpet of the Tribeca Film Festival is revelatory of the true nature of Zionism.

Last week, during the red carpet premiere of the US-Israeli co-production 'The Wedding Entertainer' at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, American comedian Elon Gold and pro-Israel influencer Lizzy Savetsky joked casually about the use of dogs by the IDF to sexually assault Palestinian detainees.

The exchange:
Elon Gold: "I was only raped by two Israeli dogs."
Lizzy Savetsky: "I thought they only raped Palestinians."
Elon Gold: "No, I got also a dog."

The incident caused an immediate backlash, with official condemnation from the Tribeca Film Festival itself. But Lizzy Savetsky was proud of her joke. She denied she was making light of sexual assault, but that she was mocking allegations she believed were completely fabricated. Her response: "humor and the arts are tools to be used to address real issues."

Elon Gold has remained conspicuously silent.

Multiple international, Palestinian, and Israeli human rights groups, alongside mainstream news outlets, have documented testimonies from former Palestinian detainees detailing sexual violence and torture within Israeli military detention facilities, notably the Sde Teiman detention camp, including the use of dogs. Despite a concerted effort to dismiss these incidents as physiologically impossible, there is ample evidence of this taking place in other instances.

Klaus Barbie, the infamous Gestapo chief in Lyon trained German Shepherds to sexually assault female prisoners. SS guards set attack dogs on naked and pregnant women. And multiple Holocaust survivors recorded accounts of guards forcing dogs onto victims.

Similar methods of canine sexual torture were later adopted by other fascist regimes, such as by Ingrid Olderöck, known as the "woman of the dogs" during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Under the authority of the regime's secret police DINA (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional) Olderöck used a German Shepard called "Volodia" to torture and sexually assault prisoners.

And then there was notorious serial killer, David Parker Ray, known as the "Toy Box Killer." Survivors reported that they were subjected to extreme torture and sexual assault, which included forcing his dogs to attack and violate them. In fact, Parker Ray says this in his own words in the horrifying tape he made his victims listen to after they were abducted.

Since Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Nicholas Kristof's editorial documenting Israel's use of dogs against Palestinian detainees, there has been a flood of pieces, mostly in American mainstream media, that have hysterically denounced the allegations as "blood libel" and "physically impossible." It is ironic that these same people are participating in Holocaust denial, such as in the case of Klaus Barbie, as they make these claims. But when it comes to Palestinian lives and the horrors they have and continue to endure, racism has the last word.

Elon Gold and Lizzy Savetsky will not face any real consequences for their cruel mockery of victims or vulgarity. They will continue to do what they do. But what this one incident reveals is that Zionism is, at its heart, an ideology of racist colonial dehumanization and erasure. And when this is permitted, any abuse or atrocity can become a punchline.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, June 2026