Palestinian boys throwing stones (AFP)
Today's UK Independent carries a searing story about Israeli treatment of young Palestinians arrested for throwing stones. Reporter Catrina Stewart somehow got to see a video recording the interrogation of a 14-year-old Palestinian named Islam Tamimi. (Stewart doesn't say so, but the video must have been made by the Israeli authorities themselves.) Her story begins:
The boy, small and frail, is struggling to stay awake. His head lolls to the side, at one point slumping on to his chest. "Lift up your head! Lift it up!" shouts one of his interrogators, slapping him. But the boy by now is past caring, for he has been awake for at least 12 hours since he was separated at gunpoint from his parents at two that morning. "I wish you'd let me go," the boy whimpers, "just so I can get some sleep."
During the nearly six-hour video, .... Tamimi, exhausted and scared, is steadily broken to the point where he starts to incriminate men from his village and weave fantastic tales that he believes his tormentors want to hear. ... Shown a page of photographs, his hand moves dully over it, identifying men from his village, all of whom will be arrested for protesting.
Stewart goes on to explain how these cases usually end, regardless of whether or not the children arrested actually threw stones:
In most cases, children as young as 12 are hauled from their beds at night, handcuffed and blindfolded, deprived of sleep and food, subjected to lengthy interrogations, then forced to sign a confession in Hebrew, a language few of them read.
...most children are frightened into signing a confession, cowed by threats of physical violence, or threats against their families, such as the withdrawal of work permits.
When a confession is signed, lawyers usually advise children to accept a plea bargain and serve a fixed jail sentence even if not guilty. Pleading innocent is to invite lengthy court proceedings, during which the child is almost always remanded in prison. Acquittals are rare. "In a military court, you have to know that you're not looking for justice," says Gabi Lasky, an Israeli lawyer who has represented many children.
At the end of the piece Stewart provides some statistics about such arrests. Most striking to me:
62 The percentage of children arrested between 12am and 5am.
Go read the whole article. And as I've said to several people active in the Palestine solidarity movement: if you ever have a moment of doubting why we do this work, just go back and re-read this piece.
Sleep deprivation interrogation is torture. That should not even be debated. I met a Chinese scholar who had been submitted to it and came out of it convinced that she was a CIA agent. Her only goal afterwards was to get to the West so she could undergo psychiatric therapy so she could understand how it was that she had been a CIA agent for a decade and not even been aware that she was. After ten years she did get the therapy and discovered that her belief had been planted by her red guard captors.
Doing this to children has to be even worse. What an evil regime.
One of the best books on the subject of torture is Rejali’s “Torture and Democracy”. Here’s an interview with him–
link
I’ve read the book. One of the points he makes in the book is the one you allude to here, that torture is a superb way of bringing out false confessions and with sleep deprivation people even start believing their own confabulations. Apparently some of the more sophisticated inquisitors back in the Middle Ages actually understood this about sleep deprivation, that it generates false confessions. Many modern interrogators (apparently including the Israelis) have fallen behind the Middle Ages in their understanding of human psychology.
And of course, all that aside, anyone who tortures a child is morally depraved.
Toivos, could you explain a little more about the chinese scholar? How does someone subject to interrogation have a persistent belief that they were a cia agent? Aren’t they aware that they were tortured?
Robert I really cannot answer your question. All I can do is repeat what I heard.
In 1980 I entered China as an expert in genetic engineering. I had a background in genetics and biochemistry as well as skills in the latest molecular genetic techniques. Many of the scientists that I met had just been rehabilitated after the purges of the cultural revolution. This one women I met told me the story I just mentioned. I heard other stories as well. Some of them did not break. In fact, her husband never did. He was a physiologist, an expert in micro manipulation of single cells. The red guards broke his fingers. I shook his hand and it was terribly disfigured. He was unable to do what what he was trained for. He mentioned that he spent 4 days in a cell, without any chairs or beds with about 4 inches of water on the floor. One does not sleep in that environment.
In any case, getting back to his wife, she was interrogated for 3 days without sleep. She was not as strong as her husband. At the end she admitted to being a CIA agent. As she told me the result was that she really believed that was the truth and lived with that belief for a decade.
i visited china in 84. it took me a few days to realize what i was seeing. every person over the age of about 40 or 50 had disfigurations. either limps or bashed in cheekbones or disfigured hands. they flipped the rules so many times no one went unscathed. it was strange because it wasn’t readily apparent to me at first then i saw it everywhere. i didn’t travel all over tho.
robert, you should read about mkultra. there are lots of brainwashing techniques. especially vulnerable are children. there are also many recorded instances of people in therapy who learn to believe there dreams in fact happened to them and are true. there have been cases of people w/’recovered memories’ who all happen to go to the same therapist. now what a coincidence that is/not.
mkultra was done for ‘security purposes’ as if creating personalities and such can really provide assistance to the cia. think about it. this stuff really happened.
here’s more re Declassified MK-Ultra Project Documents:
I cannot fathom the lack of humanity among those who are unmoved by such accounts. In the face of such portrayals, how can so many continue to stand with Israel?
I second that. I cant understand why this story isnt everywhere and, more important, why it isn’t Enough. How much information did we need about the Soviet Union before realizing it didn’t work?
Do you really want us to believe that the US and other Western countries don’t use exactly the same methods? There were or are teenagers in Gitmo. Israel works exactly like the US. You want to change the world, change the US. The moral standards of the world are set by the US.
A simple #2 you suck. Though diversion from UK to USA was needed. The #3 they suck to follow.
eeee, i always value your insight, but given how profound your analysis is, please provide a road map for us untermenschen. which crises must we first resolve before criticism of israel is legitimate?
me me me, what a truly pathetic reply, as you try to defend the abuse of children by Israel through diversion and deflection. So as usual you try and find somewhere else as bad or worse than Israel and then claim that’s ok then. Whatever happens in the US has zero to do with the kidnapping of children and their torture. Only an utterly selfish moron would attempt to defend it – well done, you have taken the biscuit, you miserable apologist for apartheid and crimes against children. I can just imagine your confected outrage if Palestinians kidnapped Israeli children and tortured them, to teach their parents to shut up and stop protesting. Creep.
Marc,
It is legitimate to criticize Israel. I am of course for freedom of speech and not against the Independent publishing these articles. Transparency is always good as it leads to accountability. I am just pointing out that this criticism is unfair and holds Israel to different standards than the US. To be clear, I am not trying to stop the criticism, but it is clear that I also have a right to criticize the criticism.
Justicewillprevail,
The US has everything to do with what Israel does because it sets the standards as to what is acceptable and what isn’t. You are attempting to hold Israel to standards the US does not meet. An utterly selfish moron would judge others according to standards he himself does not meet. And guess who is doing that?
holds Israel to different standards than the US
i think the b’selem report said the standards were different for israel vs occupation interrogation of children. the US has laws about interrogating minors without a legal guardian present. if you can point to any systematic abuse of those laws please do.
Actually, eee, we didn’t have torture and rendition and outright racial profiling of people from ethnic groups with large/majority Muslim populations until AFTER the Israeli “experts” were hired on as consultants.
Seriously, you’re so proud of your Intel processors and your cherry tomatoes! Go ahead and take credit for this too, Israeli.
An utterly selfish moron would judge others according to standards he himself does not meet. And guess who is doing that?
I missed the part where marc was torturing children, or even where he condoned it. You on the other hand are condoning it and excusing it, and then complaining about children’s rock throwing. Look in the mirror, and see yourself.
No, the US does not set the standards.
And you yourself do not hold Israel accountable at all, which is why you blame all of Palestinian society for the FRACTION of them, that in-turn cause a FRACTION of Israeli civilian deaths.
Meanwhile, your racist apartheid State steals and colonizes Palestinian land while murdering Palestinian civilians and children at a 5 and 10 to 1 ratio, respectively.
Do you think that ordinary people are not calling for the prosecution of those in the USA who ordered the use of torture against children, and adults?
I do know that some people in the former administration of the USA are being advised not to travel outside of the country as a result of their advocacy of torture. I, for one, hope that R. Cheney decides that a trip to the Hague is too tempting to pass up though.
I certainly do not regard US standards are acceptable in for example its ongoing incarceration of people without trial at Guantanamo.
I don’t believe in those standards and while no doubt in your eyes I’m a selfish (I think you mean egocentric) moron I do hold Israel and the US to the same standards as I apply to myself. And pray do tell us who is doing that?
But really this is technique number 21 in the Hasbara Code – switch the focus to someone else.
you know who Chas Freeman is, eee, don’t you?
Obama proposed him for National Intelligence Director but AIPAC did not approve. Out he went.
Here’s what Freeman had to say about who has dragged whose values into the gutter:
and
finally,
>> Israel works exactly like the US. … The moral standards of the world are set by the US.
eee, you need to stop using your Zio-supremacist “common sense” – it really does make you sound like a complete idiot.
“Gosh, I’d really like to be a law-abiding citizen, but there are rapists and looters everywhere, so ‘common sense’ tells me that I have to be a criminal.”
No, they aren’t.
In any case: We have read the description of what these Israeli thugs do to Palestinian children. The only acceptable response by any decent human being is to condemn this.
The only thing eee’s feeble attempts at justification, distraction and minimization tell us is that he is not a decent human being. His words are more like those of a borderline sociopath, and a racist one at that.
That is somewhat interesting, but it’s also nothing new, and it certainly doesn’t merit engaging him in lengthy discussions on the minutiae of his turpitude.
It is legitimate to criticize Israel etc. etc. . . .
oh, eee, i afraid you’re just not making any sense, pookums. but you seem to have taken up a lot of space on this thread. job well done.
How is anyone holding Israel to a different standard on this issue?
The article is about Israeli torture.
When an article talking about USA torture is published, there is tremendous criticism of the USA. That criticism is not unfair because the article doesn’t take an illogical turn and then criticize Israeli torture…and all other torture programs in the world.
Please adjust your logic settings.
Gitmo is loaded with Israelis and the “Palestinian Hanging” technique is used there. That’s why the methods used are the same, it’s the same psychopaths.
‘I cant understand why this story isnt everywhere and, more important, why it isn’t Enough.”
Because for all of America’s claimed respect for human liberty, progressiveness, human rights and what have you, Americans don’t give a damn about human rights when it is done by people wearing the white hats (or is it the white skins, I keep forgetting) and will excuse literally anything they do against those wearing the black hats. If you get stuck with the label of “bad guy” then you become non-human to Americans.
In this conflict, American Christians and Jews have differing reason, but they both agree to label the Israeli the white hats and the Palestinians the black hats. So the average American will engage in Orwellian feats of double-think to conclude that torturing an innocent child is okay with them, so long as that kid is an Arab.
(and then he’ll go on and on about “freedom and justice for all.”)
Politically, the average American is a disgusting piece of shit. That’s just the way it is.
Phil, to borrow a query from author Rick Perlstein, under what conditions of modern journalistic standards would it be acceptable for a journalist in Weimar Germany “to report–not opine, report–that democracy was under threat?” Why are we so afraid of shaking up the status quo? What’s wrong with throwing impartiality out the window, and calling things as they are? Who cares what the lobby says in retaliation, or what nonsense the uninformed masses think of our pursuit of justice, after all, isn’t the goal to inform people? Why so many so-called journalists shy away, and why so many readers close their eyes to the truth, it’s really quite troubling.
This story is tagged #1 as most viewed in the Independent. At least the Brits are paying attention.
“In the face of such portrayals, how can so many continue to stand with Israel?”
My answer for what it’s worth.They don’t see it, because they’re not exposed to it or they, outright, refuse to see it, and if they do, they refuse to believe it. These are the 3 major hurdles set up along the way.
This phenom, is why the German people were “correct” when they said “they didn’t know”.
This is barbarism. Sheer barbarism. These Israelis should be locked up.
>> eee: I will also be against any unlawful or uncivilized action by any Israeli against Palestinians.
OK, eee, time to put your money where your mouth is. Please speak out against this unlawful AND uncivilized action by Israelis against Palestinians.
You, too, RW:
>> RW: I will criticize policies that I become aware of that I find repugnant.
Thank you.
I disagree that Sleep deprivation is torture.
Many others agree with me:
link to en.wikipedia.org
This is what amnesty international had to say:
“At the very least, sleep deprivation is cruel, inhumane and degrading. If used for prolonged periods of time it is torture.”
I agree to this sentence. But interrogation and incarceration in general is cruel, inhumane and degrading. I would use neither in a perfect world. But I do not live in a perfect world, you do. Sleep deprivation is an effective interrogation technique that should be used with care and with medical supervision. It is the best of many bad options.
if zionists would simply drop their land-grab plans and live as neighbors and share – you have to be a good neighbor to have good neighbors – they could live in Palestine/Israel (whateverthefuckwecallit) alongside Druze, Christians, Armenians, Palestinians, etc etc and have peace … the zionists are militant extremist racist hell-bent on forcing the indigenous people from their land in some wacko-religious-inspired possession/supremacist vendetta … the world has had enough of it and will impose a peace upon zionists that they won’t like, and, hey, fuck ‘em
Why should Arab Palestinians “share” ANYTHING with their european jailers and murderers?
Exactly Taxi, I don’t expect them to. May the best nation win (and yes the Jews are a nation).
Thank you for validating the views of the most right wing of Israelis. If you want an “us or them” outcome, remember that it can go either way. I reject such outcome.
No, the Jews are NOT a “nation.”
Believing that they are is where the problem begins…
the Palestinians are willing to share and have said so endlessly – they will co-exist with the occupiers if they zionists will simply stop behaving like cruel savages … they are realistic and are not so greedy as the zionists … I thought all of that was quite obvious and didn’t need explanation
Dex,
If millions of Jews tell you they are a nation, you better believe it or start taking medication.
eee,
What a sad eff you are mister ex-idf.
You’re a known racist braggart who can’t run half a mile without stitching-up and you think you can outrun the justice that is heading your way like a “tsunami”?
If most israelis are in your deluded state of mind, then I predict it’s gonna be a quick war and you’re gonna be packing some serious suitcases.
Don’t be naive. All nations are constructed, which means that, before the advent of Zionism, those millions of Jews you refer to would have never considered themselves to be part of any “nation.”
There is an Israeli nation…there is NO Jewish nation.
eeee: Exactly Taxi, I don’t expect them to.as predicted. Read: they suck. triple e as predicted. Now you got a #4, eeeeee: everybody sucks.
I wonder if your opinion would change if this cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment were used on your child, or any Jewish child, for any reason.
Not that the rule of law means anything to you, but the Convention Against Torture labels exactly this kind of treatment as torture and as cruel, inhuman, and degrading. Israel is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture. As an immigration and human rights lawyer, and as a Palestinian, I can’t think of anything that exposes the sham that is international law more than this sad fact.
Rania,
1) I would not send my kids to throw stones as I really do not see how it advances any Palestinian goals.
2) If I thought violence were the way, I would fight myself, not send my kids to throw stones.
3) Of course I would resent vehemently my kids being subjected to such treatment even if they threw stones, just as I would resent my kid being put in jail. In a perfect world, none would be necessary. I agreed that these acts are cruel. Yet, a dead person cannot be moral. He is just dead. Israel and the Palestinians are in a state of war, and war is cruel even when it is just. When you bayonet someone for a just cause, you are still being cruel and inhumane.
“send my kids to throw stones”
where do you come up w/this stuff? where do you get the idea palestinian parents are ‘sending their kids out’ to throw stones? most of these arrests are taking place in villages practicing non violent protests. did you even read the article? how many times does it have to be said innocents are being rounded up to try to frame the adults. did you read, they have a video of the interrogation.
wake up.
eee,
You seriously are the stupidest Zionist commentator on this blog.
You would not ‘send’ your kids to throw rocks??
The kids throwing rocks are pissed off, as they should be. They are not making a political statement. They are pissed off kids, and reacting to a military that has been OCCUPYING and GUARDING THE THEFT of their land.
The notion that anyone else would remain calm, while their lives are destroyed is f***ing STUPID.
I guess you’re being a racist again, presuming that Arab children are uppity troublemakers who do damage to their own cause? However, in this case, you’re just plain stupid.
(don’t censor, Phil)
At the risk of stating the obvious, the reason international law exists is because we do not live in a perfect world. Your reasoning is faulty and embarrassing. Are you saying that because the world is not perfect, Israel has a right to torture children (or in your view, to “merely” subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment)? The Convention Against Torture is law precisely because torture exists, it is considered to be inherently wrong in any and all situations, and civilization and human progress demand that such barbarism is outlawed. As usual, you are blaming the victim. And, to again state the obvious to anyone who is not willfully ignorant, the Israelis and Palestinians are not at war. Israel is occupying Palestine. That is not a state of war; that is a state of occupation with a different set of rules, under which the occupying power (that’s you) must not harm the occupied, who have a legal right to resist.
eee is saying that, after Israel goes out and does something criminal and immoral (every day), that *drumroll*, we live in a troubled and complicated world.
So troubled! So complicated! It is simply beyond us mere mortals to comprehend the complexity. It is simply beyond us mere mortals to tackle the ‘troubled’-ness!
Oh and, Am Israel Chai!
link to youtube.com
Cliff, you piss me off but I am not outside your house throwing rocks at it.
Did you really just say that DBG? Really? I piss you off? You’re comparing your animosity towards me to the animosity between the occupied and their occupier (in this case, the military)?
I’m not a member of the military who for generations have been occupying your land while fundie settler ingrates steal your land and your water and generally make your daily life a living hell.
Last time I checked, I’m not part of a racist apartheid State’s military, guarding the on-going expropriation of another peoples’ homeland.
Try not to be as stupid as you can be in one single post, DBG. Pace yourself like eee at least.
And Cliff isn’t occupying yours, subjecting you to heinous discrimination, restricting your movement, limiting your freedoms and kidnapping your children in the middle of the night and torturing them. Why are all the Israeli commenters here so willfully blase about the cruelty of Israel’s actions towards the Palestinians- actions that have been going on for decades? ‘Look! The bad people are throwing stones!’ while ignoring the continual atrocities Israel has perpetrated against Palestinians.
What if Cliff were outside your house, DBG, uprooting your trees, demolishing your neighbors’ houses, killing your animals, and shooting your disabled brother in the head ten times?
cliff, just play along. i have it on good authority that eeee is actually an oberleutnant in the White Aryan Resistance sent here as a provocateur to discredit zionists. clever. and it’s working.
Rania,
Sleep deprivation and interrogation are not torture if applied within bounds. So no, Israel does not have the right to torture kids, but it does have the right to interrogate them using sleep deprivation.
But even though it is not torture it is cruel. So in a perfect world it would not be necessary, but we do not live in a perfect world.
When Palestinians blow themselves up in the bus I ride sometimes, don’t tell me they are not at war with me. I really don’t care about the legalese. When they shoot rockets at Israel, don’t tell me they are not at war. I don’t care if the Palestinians have a right to resist. They can do whatever they see fit, but I will certainly defend myself and also attempt to preempt violence because I believe it is my right to do so.
Send me your address and I’ll be over shortly to brutally occupy it DBG – afterwhich I will break your children’s knuckles if they throw stones at my patio.
Rania,
Look, you are missing the point. You want to use violence, use violence. You want to use international law, use international law. You want to use non-violence, use that. You want to preach, preach. Who am I to tell you what to do? I have my own moral dilemmas to deal with. Do I always make the right trade offs between security and morals? Probably not. I have to live with that. Better safe than sorry.
Only an historical compromise via negotiations is going to bring a peaceful solution. When you decide to accept that, there will be peace.
Of course not, DBG, but if you knew his full name and where he worked, there’d be other repercussions, wouldn’t there?
hey eee, the ‘at war’ excuse for decades of occupation doesn’t really fly. this is an apartheid state w/completely different rules based on ethnicity. quit excusing this stuff.
shorter eee: hey rania, it is meaningless what you think and say because i am a mouthpiece for the bullystate, when you accept your submission there will be peace, it is all up to you.
Hey eee,
You aren’t answering the points made by Rania and others.
Israel kills far more Palestinian civilians, especially children.
In addition to the killing of civilians, Israel is a colonial-settler State that is subjugating all of Palestinian society, WHILE it steals from them.
You continue to frame this conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people, as a ‘war’. It’s not a war. There will always be terrorism in these conflicts. That doesn’t make it a war.
Since you are a racist and colonist eee – in spite of your declaration that you’re homeland is Israel, which would imply that your Zionism is benign/”post-Zionism” – you actively express the CLICHE’D colonialist attitudes towards the Palestinians.
It’s just like I said – in spite of the VAST difference in civilian deaths, you do not hold Israel or Zionism responsible.
If Israelis die, you hold ALL of Palestinian society (their history, their identity, their rights, etc.) responsible.
You’ve slandered all of Palestinian society and all Palestinians as ‘murderous’.
Anyone with some common sense can see what a total hate-mongering hypocrite you are.
You can frame your ‘right to defend yourself’ as benign all you want, just as you frame your Zionism as benign one second while breaking character the next and revealing your colonialist mentality. It means nothing and has no moral standing.
Zionism is the root cause of the problem. Not radical Islam. Not suicide bombing. Palestinian Arabs were the majority. They were systematically expelled by Jewish terrorists and the newly formed Israeli army.
All of this comes back to 1948. There is no Jewish State such as it is without ethnic cleansing and constant destabilization.
Palestinian terrorists did not even BEGIN suicide bombing until 1994. The occupation had been going on for almost 30 years by that point.
“Cliff, you piss me off but I am not outside your house throwing rocks at it”
How do you get away with this crap in your own head? Flooding Palestinans with raw sewage. Disabling their water wells. Selling them fake seedlings at great cost. Razing their crops and orchards. Sending little fuckin’ teeny bopper bigots in training to perform evictions. Having SNIPERS target farmers attempting to work their fields. Targeting fishing boats. THE LIST GOES ON AND ON.
You are DESPICABLE, DBG. Your arguments and comments are so devoid of integrity or character that you have rendered yourself as a LOATHSOME human being.
Shame on you.
The impetus is not on the occupied people, but on the occupier who has virtually all the power.
The Palestine papers have revealed how insincere Israel is about making peace.
If Israel wanted peace, it wouldn’t be colonizing the West Bank and E. Jerusalem (and Gaza previously).
The Palestinians are playing a rigged game with fascists like you.
You have no morals either, eee. Having morals means you have some measure of universality. Like something is wrong in spite of a person’s race/religion/etc.
Eee,
If “Israel and the Palestinians are in a state of war” then the rockets going into southern Israel are absolutely permissible.
Which is it?
Which of your points am I missing? Maybe it’s because I’m a stupid Arab, but I am having a hard time following your crack-addled racist diatribes. As I parse through your comments, it seems to me that you believe that a) Israel has a blank check to torture, maim, kill, and steal so long as America does it, b) Israel can subject Palestinian children to arrest, sleep deprivation, interrogation, and torture because Israel is at war against all Palestinians, guilty or innocent, old or young, armed or unarmed, c) it does not matter if Palestinians choose violence, international law, non-violence, or “preaching” to advance their cause for liberation because you have other, more important, “moral dilemmas” about your own security that trump any and all concerns, and your security demands that Palestinians give up, leave, or drop dead, and d) no matter what the law says, the conflict between Israel and Palestine is a fair war between two, similarly situated parties.
Did I get that right? Allow me to respond. First, if the U.S. were to throw itself off a bridge, would you do the same? Just because your friends do something doesn’t mean that it’s right. Is that simple enough for you? I’m just trying to dumb things down since you don’t believe in the law. Second, torture is wrong and torturing children is even worse. If you think we are at war, then how would you react to the torture, sleep deprivation, and interrogation of Jewish children? By your logic, you would think it is a necessary evil. I find this to be morally depraved and you to be morally repugnant. Anyone who unapologetically defends the torture of children is beyond redemption. You clearly do not view Palestinians as human. Third, I shudder to imagine what kind of moral dilemmas you live with if you are the kind of person who advocates for the torture of children. If you don’t think violence, non-violence, preaching, or international law are viable methods, then what do you suggest? I imagine your suggestion is, once again, give up and leave, or drop dead, both of which amount to genocide. And finally, if this is a war between two equal parties, who started the war? The truth is that it is not a war and the parties are not equal. It is an occupation. Deal with it. There are rules of war and occupation for a reason, and the reason is to prevent barbarity like the torture of children.
You will not get any sort of cathartic response from that hateful buffoon.
People like him are hopelessly delusional.
Thanks, Annie. :) There should be a google translate button for eee.
MRW,
Where did I say that Palestinians shooting missiles is not permissible? Who gives Palestinians permissions anyway? That is a useless concept. All I said is I consider this an assault on myself and will defend myself.
Thanks, Cliff. I actually find this whole blog extremely cathartic. I love Mondoweiss very much. It makes me feel better about the world knowing there are so many people who recognize that eee and people like him are hateful buffoons. A sea change is happening; I can feel it. I am sure this is what scares eee the most. I have learned so much from you and from everyone on Mondoweiss, and that is cathartic to me even if eee never admits that he is a racist and an apologist for genocide.
Rania,
You again misunderstand me.
1) The US sets the example for the whole world. We are not talking about clear cut issues like “jumping of bridges”. We are talking about difficult questions as to where is line between interrogation and torture. Why shouldn’t Israel listen to the US on such issues?
2) Since we are at war, I would do the utmost to prevent Jewish children from being interrogated using sleep deprivation by Palestinians. I understand why you are doing the same. Palestinians are humans, just humans that are trying to kill me. That changes my attitude towards them.
3) Sleep deprivation till a certain extent is not torture. You are begging the question here.
4) I really am not suggesting anything except telling you to pursue whatever strategy you prefer. I think only negotiations will work. Why do you equate this with dropping dead?
A sea change is happening; I can feel it
me too rania. very much so
hey eee, you know that tv show 24 where they torture people. there’s some guy who knows where the bomb is that will blow up the whole of western civilization if the torture doesn’t release the truth from him about the location of the bomb. there are only 17 hrs left..then 8,7,6..we’re getting so close to ending civilization as we know it.
now apply those same methods to a child for throwing stones for the very lame reason that you and yours need to feel safe.
eee, I understand you perfectly. You have been indoctrinated and brainwashed. You are pitiful, and I feel only pity for you. Have you ever read 1984? You really should. It’s all about the government using perpetual war to fool people into giving up their freedoms. It is also about torture, and minor things like sleep and food deprivation. It might open your eyes a little. It’s supposed to be dystopic, but I think it will make you feel right at home. You will probably read it differently from most people. Most people find it terrifying, but you are so fully and completely indoctrinated that you will probably sympathize with the State. If you ever take any time off from trolling the web to read it, please let me know what you think.
“Palestinians are humans, just humans that are trying to kill me”
Note the lumping together.
“Palestinians”
But don’t you DARE lump Jews or Israelis into a seething mass of murderous bigots, who are all out to “kill” Palestinians.
Of ALL the issaues being blogged about on the internet, I find the comments of staunch supporters of Israel as being the most consistently disingenuous, hateful, and irritatingly grating.
Also, eee, I think the difference between you and me is that I would do my utmost to prevent Jewish children from being tortured, just as I would Palestinian children, American children, Iraqi children, Chinese children and children of any race or religion, whereas you only care about your own people. Torture, or “interrogation using sleep deprivation” as you euphemistically call it, is wrong no matter who the victim or who the perpetrator. Some things are inherently wrong. I know you will never see that.
Welcome to the blog, incidentally, Rania, or at least welcome to the comment section if you’ve been here for quite some time already. You are breath of fresh air.
Thank you so much, Chaos4700. That means so much, especially since I really had to screw up my courage today to post. I have been a long-time lurker on Mondoweiss, but this is the first time that I’ve posted. What can I say, eee motivated me. I thought I had seen it all, but defending the torture of children? That is something else.
Rania: I agree enthusiastically with Chaos, and I’m sure with many other visitors to Mondoweiss. Please keep commenting, as much as you want, as often as you can.
Thanks, James! I hope I don’t do anything to make you regret encouraging me. :)
Rania,
The fact of the matter is that Israeli society is much more democratic, free and transparent than any Arab society including the Palestinian one. Arguing that Israelis like me are brainwashed or indoctrinated is just an escape from confronting the fact that we just have another point of view that is reality based. You just don’t like this point of view, that is your right, but don’t fool yourself. As the second intifada and the Palestinian civil war show, your society is completely screwed up. I recommend you fix your house first before preaching to others.
You’re beating a dead horse eee. That should be “blew” – past tense – not blow in present tense. No suicide bombings for at least 3 years now. I’ve detected the same sadness in other zionists that Palestinians stopped suicide bombing, so you’re not alone in your fond reminiscing.
Nothing you do in the occupied Palestinian territories, Gaza or the West Bank, is self-defence. The military occupation of the oPt’s is ALL offensive action, all the time – and that includes trying to justify killing Palestinians to ‘preempt’ violence.
I third Chaos & James, Rania. Welcome, and glad you could take some time out from lawyering and trying to kill eee to comment :-)
your society is completely screwed up. I recommend you fix your house first before preaching to others.
says eee, who preaches to us daily from his screwed up apartheid society!
it sure is entertaining around here tonight folks
;) welcome aboard rania
Well, then, eee, if Israel really is that strong of a democracy, then it really is completely within our rights to blame EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU for torturing Palestinian children. Since that means most of you really are choosing that.
eee, it’s hard to fix your house when racist, brainwashed assholes keep demolishing it. It’s the darndest thing. And I can’t believe you haven’t called me an anti-semite yet. I got “inhuman” and “terrorist,” but I was hoping to get the trifecta from you. I feel like such a failure.
I hate to break it to you, but democracy and brainwashing are not mutually exclusive…..which is apropos of nothing since Israel can hardly be called a democracy. And you should take a look around you….democracy is sprouting up all over the place, just not where you live. I know it freaks your shit, but you have to accept it. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings by pointing out that you are a brainwashed robot living in fear of children who have no weapons, no representatives, no government, no infrastructure, no money, no power, no food, no water, no land, and not a single country that supports them but who are STILL kicking your asses so bad with the truth that you have to spend your entire miserable life spreading lies on the internet. I should have just kept that to myself and spared your feelings.
Ha! I have been busy today. I can’t believe he brought up that time I personally tried to blow up his bus. Awkward!
Case and point, the rise of Nazi Germany. I guess eee doesn’t really believe in “Never Forget.” Or “Never Again” for that matter.
awkward is right, welcome to the land of 3e
“Ha! I have been busy today. I can’t believe he brought up that time I personally tried to blow up his bus. Awkward!”
Maybe you didn’t, but the majority of Palestinians either attempted to do this or cheered on the people doing it.
zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Sumud,
So three years without suicide bombings (not true by the way) and I should think Palestinian society is normal? Yeah, right. As for Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza, of course they are self defense. I would rather arrest or kill a terrorist before he attempts his act. I know you do not understand this, but hey, it’s a bitch when Jews control their own destiny, isn’t it?
I would rather arrest or kill a terrorist before he attempts his act.
what do you think of the king’s torah. don’t they advocate killing little babies to prevent them from growing up to become threats?
Annie,
You would love to live under Hamas would you? Or would you prefer the rule of the PA? In any case, these are the two options the Palestinians will give you. So which option do you prefer? Any society that is stuck with these two options is screwed.
eee, if it gives you any peace of mind whatsoever it would never occur to me to judge all jews based on the grotesque racist madness spilling from your mind tonight.
Annie,
Right, I am advocating killing babies when they are young.
I advocate killing terrorists or preferably arresting them based on good intelligence. Israel preempted many attacks against it using this method.
Annie,
What racist madness? You are putting words in my mouth and calling it racism. Show me ONE racist comment I made.
Eee, what’s the difference, fundamentally, behind your “All Palestinians are terrorists” mentality, and the Nazi German “All Jews are terrorists” mentality?
I advocate killing terrorists or preferably arresting them based on good intelligence. Israel preempted many attacks against it using this method.
allegedly. of course when you kill people sans trial or representation or before they commit an act you never really know, unless you believe the lying thieving government representing you know who.
You would love to live under Hamas would you? Or would you prefer the rule of the PA?
i’d be more concerned about living under the torturing zionist occupation than either of the two governments you mention. anyday. i doubt i would be alive, israel would have killed be by now. i wasn’t raised with the sumud of palestinians. i probably would have been a suicide bomber if someone had tortured my child.
Annie,
As usual, you define a new standard for Israel. In the last few years the US has made many more targeted killings than Israel. So who is using double standards and being a racist?
And of course I believe my government. The Palestinians themselves admit leaders of their armed struggle are arrested or killed.
Annie,
So where is your proof about me being a racist? Show me ONE racist comment I made.
Annie,
Right, if someone did not let your kid sleep for a day, you would go blow up a bus with Jewish kids. Nice to know.
So who is using double standards and being a racist?
excuse me? first of all i don’t defend my governments intransigence so don’t pretend i do.
And of course I believe my government.
of course you do. you’re a little brainwashed ziocaine addled torturing excusing nutjob.
take the last word, i’m done talking to you.
rania 10:51pm post.. thanks for saying that.. perhaps eee and other ziofreaks here will have some humanity sink in whereby they get beyond there narrow self interests… thanks for posting here and i hope you continue.. i admire what you have to say here..
grow up. we’re talking about generations born into prison who live their whole lives in prison and die in prison. don’t pan this off as anything but what you, me and everyone knows is happening eee. these are caged people . and no, unlike the idf i wouldn’t ever target children.
Annie,
We are not done until you give me ONE example to back your allegation that I made racist remarks. Either that or withdraw your allegation.
You don’t defend your government? So what? Your government does EXACTLY what Israel does, just on a larger scale. It is supported by most Americans and you have the nerve to criticize Israel for using the same methods? Fix your own home before accusing others.
You can call me brainwashed till kingdom come, but the fact is that most targeted killings actually get a militant and even the Palestinians admit to that. Facts are facts.
Eee, the next time your son, or your nephew, or some other Jewish child misbehaves, I demand that you put your money where your mouth is, and punish that child by depriving them of sleep for twenty-four hours.
Prove to us that you’re not just a racist.
“grow up. we’re talking about generations born into prison who live their whole lives in prison and die in prison. don’t pan this off as anything but what you, me and everyone knows is happening eee. these are caged people . and no, unlike the idf i wouldn’t ever target children.”
They are not caged people. That is just delusional to say. The West Bank and Gaza are not prisons. Only in your distorted imagination.
James,
Of course, why should we care about our narrow interests when you will take care of us right? Just look you saved the Jews of Europe in WWII and just like you sent an army to support the 500,000 Jews in Palestine in 1948. How could I forget your benevolent actions and your care! All countries take care of their narrow interests. Israel will too. Don’t be naive.
Where did I say all Palestinians are terrorists Chaos?
You keep inventing things and want me to respond. Quote me and I will respond.
We are not done until you give me ONE example to back your allegation that I made racist remarks. Either that or withdraw your allegation.
listen mr hotshit ziobot, we’re done whenever i say were done. we’re done whenever the hell i want.
ciao
Annie,
You are so fond of quotes and always demand them. So what is your problem? You called me a racist, now back it with a quote or withdraw your allegation.
Answer my questions first, eee.
A) What makes your attitude toward ALL Palestinians any different than the Nazi attitude toward ALL Jews?
B) Since you don’t believe that sleep deprivation is torture, will you use it to punish your own children? Put your money where your mouth is, if you’re not a racist and you don’t think this is reserved for only Palestinian children.
So let me get this straight Annie, you can just call me a racist and slink away without giving ONE quote? Are those the standards you want for debate here? What is the problem. Just ONE quote.
And now you are also censoring my comments requesting a quote to prove your allegations? Nice way to keep the moral high ground.
Chaos,
My attitude towards Palestinians is the same as the American attitude towards Germans and Japanese during WWII and not the attitude of Nazis to Jews. I don’t view Palestinians as inhuman or inferior and would gladly live in peace with them. But for now, their society is at war with mine.
Slapping someone is not torture either and yet I don’t slap my kids so why should I sleep deprive them?
Hey Chaos,
So where did I call all Palestinians terrorists? I answered your questions, it is time to answer mine.
hear the news from the land of flying pigs (good intelligence, like identification of recent attackers as Palestinians on the account of possessing such a uniquely Palestinian weapon like Kalashnikov).
Earth to eee: stories released by Israeli “intelligence” to public have as much chance of being true as if they were typed by monkeys. But hey, if they kill someone, SURELY there had to be a valid reason.
No, it isn’t. AT NO POINT did Americans target children in Germany and Japan the way you and your government deliberately targets children.
Got it, so you think that only Palestinian children deserve “non-torture” torture. We’ve established that you are a racist, concretely, eee, so don’t come whining again when you’re identified as such.
You are a racist. It’s all up there for everyone to see. You treat Jews different than you treat Palestinians. Right down to the children.
I hope some day, your children grow up to be smart enough to demand from you an answer why you think it is okay to torture other children.
And who’s at war with whom? You have the army, you have the prison camps, you have the air force, the warships, the soldiers and the white phosphorous. You are in their homes, your bombs are in their schools and your hands are around their throats whenever they seek food to eat and water to drink. And what do the Palestinians have over you? You might have to spend a weekend away from the bar because you have an irrational fear that any and all Palestinians on any street you might wander down might be strapping a bomb? You’ve declared war on every man, woman and child, then? That explains why it sits fine with you to treat Palestinian children in your Israeli occupation like you yourself would have been treated as a Jewish child under Nazi occupation.
I never promised to answer your question, I couldn’t give two shits about you playing stupid semantics games when I’ve already proven my point about how much race hatred you harbor. The fact of the matter is, you endorse murder and torture of Palestinian children. That alone proves my point about what you believe about the entire Palestinian people. Not to mention the fact that you continuously refer to them as an inferior society, and openly mock Arab civilization in general.
simple, eee. you heartily approve of the abuse of palestinian youth in this thread, but do not approve of similar tactics being used by palestinians against jewish youth. and so, you are a racist. that is one example of your racism in this thread, not to mention your nasty habit of lumping all non-jews into one rabid, bloodlusting mass.
eee – I have had enough of your hasbara. I am also a Jewish Israeli citizen but currently living in the US (dual citizenship has it’s advantages). My grandfather was Irgun. He readily admitted he was a Jewish terrorist fighting for Independence. In his journals and photographs you can find many dozens of episodes where not only British soldiers were killed but also innocent arabs. He personally shot arabs as well as prepared fertilizer bombs that were set off in arab marketplaces to intimidate the local population. Frankly, he felt his and his fellow Irgun terrorism was justified no matter what it took to achieve a Jewish state. This rationalization ended when he participated in the Deir Yassin massacre and he promptly left Israel. Terrorism in pursuit of Independence is okay for Jews but not for others.
When I lived in Israel as well as now when I return twice a year for extended Holiday visits with my relatives I have witnessed enough unnecessary violence and degradation by Jews in the West Bank to fill a very large book. I have seen IDF soldiers at a check point pissing on Palestinian shoes. In this instance, the Palestinian man tried to take a swing at the soldier who merely stepped back and shot the man in the chest. I watched two young teenagers near Kiryat Arba force a Palestinian family at gunpoint to get on their hands and knees and bark like a dog while a jeep full of IDF soldiers 20 feet away laughed. I have watched settlers at Bat Ayin use Palestinian sheep and goats for target practice and then have the nerve to retrieve the animals for their own feasts. I have watched settlers from Itamar cutting down Palestinian Olive trees in broad daylight with the IDF sitting in their vehicles 50 meters away watching the destruction. I have watched wholesale fondling of Palestinian women’s breasts by the IDF and armed settlers usually when the husband was present to degrade the man in front of others.
I could go on and on from my 50+ years in Israel. My entire side of the family, all 35 of them, reside in the settlements. I know settlers intimately because that is where I spend my Israeli time. To get a true flavor of the occupation I suggest you meander around the west bank for a while and keep your eyes open. If you are a true Jew to your faith, you will be disgusted. If that doesn’t do it go to shul in Kiryat Arba, Bat Ayin and Itamar. You will hear words of hatred that will make your hair stand straight up. Go on, and then report back to us.
It’s the zionist mindset. They send soldiers to help steal land and natural resources and help in their state’s ethnic cleansing, all outside any recognized borders of their state. When kids whose parent’s land is being stolen throw rocks at the invading soldiers, zionists claim that arresting and torturing the kids into making false confessions is self-defense.
eee
You claim it is delusional to say the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza are “caged people”. Well YOU are attempting to delude us, or are yourself delusional about the Israeli Government, as it has been DELIBERATE policy to treat the Palestinians as if they were prisoners ever since ‘the damn war, as both these videos explain:
link to youtube.com
by Ronen Berelovich “The Zionist Story”
link to mikopeled.wordpress.com
An interview wrt Miko Peled’s soon to be out book “The General’s Son”. He’s delighted it’s been seen 50,000 times!
>> If you are a true Jew to your faith, you will be disgusted.
He’s an atheist – without a Jewish faith to be true to – so he won’t be disgusted.
He’s a Zio-supremacist, so he’ll shrug off the violence and inhumanity as a “required” evil.
So what would be the right way to use sleep deprivation on children kidnapped out of their beds by the police between 12 AM and 5 AM?
Yea, those uppity Arab children!
sleep deprivation is torture. it is one of the ‘no-touch’ methods of torture and interrogation perfected in the post-WWII era by the psychopaths employed by the CIA/DIA and others, who understood that physical torture most often produced ‘heightened resistance’ to interrogation. ‘much of the pain from all forms of torture is psychological, not physical, based on denying victims any power over their lives.’ ‘the torturer strives through insult and disqualification, by means of threats to break all of the victim’s possible existential platforms’, placing the victim in the double bind of enduring continuing stress or the betrayal of others, shattering the victim’s senses of place and time through sleep deprivation and enclosure in confined, anonymous spaces, etc. Alfred McCoy, A Question of Torture.
>> I disagree that Sleep deprivation is torture.
Not surprising, coming from a hateful and immoral turd like you.
But it’s easy for guys like you, Cheney and Rumsfeld to brush this off as “enhanced interrogation” and nothing more. Funny thing is, if any of you were to be subjected to what you consider to be “not torture” for a couple of months, you’d be blubbering like little babies.
What a jackass you are. And you try to pass yourself off as reasonable and caring. Hah!
to eee :
link to un.org
I would like to add something else, but because this is a public site, ill just skip it.
“I disagree that Sleep deprivation is torture.”
and ok to use on these children?
link to 2.bp.blogspot.com
“I disagree that Sleep deprivation is torture.
Many others agree with me:”
Yeah, apologists for torture. There are plenty of those in every society, unfortunately. We have them in America and obviously you are an Israeli who supports torture as well. “Cruel, inhumane, and degrading” isn’t meant to imply “acceptable” when used by Amnesty International, but that’s how you chose to read it with your fatuous comparison of this to incarceration and interrogation.
As for effectiveness, if you think generating false confessions demonstrates effectiveness then you are right–it’s effective. And for some purposes that’s just what is wanted–false confessions.
eee, as a general rule of thumb, between rubbing the Palestinians all over with kittens and incinerating them, where, precisely, do you draw the line?
lol, good one kapok
Great comment.
eee August 26, 2011 at 3:09 pm
“I disagree that Sleep deprivation is torture.”
Spend 24-48 hours in a brightly lit room with thugs barking orders at you, and you WILL change your mind on that one.
eee,
The late Israeli prime minister and Nobel Prize winner, Yitzhak Rabin, did not, as I recall, subject 12 year old Palestinians to such instruments of torture such as sleep deprivation during the first Intifada. He simply gave the orders to Israeli soldiers to “break the bones” in the hands of every Palestinian child caught throwing stones and he made that order public. And break their bones, they did. Do you think breaking the bones of Palestinian children was a more acceptable response and worthy of a Nobel Prize winner? Do you think there is any reason for a Palestinian child not to hate every Israeli soldier he or she sees?
Blankfort,
I really do not see any reason for the Palestinians not to hate Israelis in general or Israeli soldiers in particular. From their point of view I realize we look very bad. But so what, did the Japanese like Americans for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians? I don’t think so. The loser in a war rarely likes the winner and vice verso. Wars leave bad feelings all around, especially conflicts that last decades. Do you see any reason why Israelis should love Palestinians or trust them after the second intifada?
They did, and you can even see the IDF breaking children’s bones in this excerpt from the documentary ‘Occupation 101′:
israels BROKEN BONES policy
I don’t know how any person with an ounce of self-respect could perpetrate crimes such as these.
…Especially since the United States is still occupying Japan decades later, and as a result they have no economy. We’ve also repeatedly bombed Japan’s civil infrastructure, making modern elections impossible, and of course there are standing orders for US Marines to torture ANY Japanese children who throw rocks at US soldiers.
So I guess you have a point, eee. Let’s ask an average Japanese citizen how much they despise Americans. You know, a friend of mine is having a Japanese citizen visit next week (he met the guy when he was over there volunteering to do tsunami cleanup, I guess as part of the “occupation” you’re talking about.) Do you want me to ask how badly my friend’s friend wants to kill all of us over here?
And once there is peace, the same relations will eventually be between Jews and Palestinians. But could what you are describing happen during the war? Of course not. I am sure the Americans were loved in Japan right after Hiroshima and Nagasaki because apparently that is what you believe.
Ok guys, compare these two statements from the racist ex-IDF, goon.
He says Palestinians have no reason to hate Israeli soldiers (in particular).
Then he goes on to whitewash Israeli crimes by comparing them to the Japanese after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So basically, eee is lecturing to the PALESTINIANS (not us, who are having an academic discussion here and who are NOT living under Israeli colonialism and occupation) that they have no legitimate reason to hate the IDF because the IDF did not nuke them.
So unless you are nuked, whatever kind of suffering, abuse, criminality you are inflicted with will not suffice eee’s standard.
‘the world sucks’
eee, as I said – you are the STUPIDEST Zionist I’ve had the bad fortune to debate on this blog.
Now, at the end of eee’s post he then EQUIVOCATES the Palestinian experience under occupation and colonialism to the 2nd Intifada vis a vis the Israeli experience.
40+ years of occupation and colonialism apparently is comparable to the 2nd Intifada.
We all know that Palestinians in Israel and the OT suffered more during this time. They ALWAYS do.
But the buffoon insinuates that Israelis have reason to hate Palestinians because of this.
eee applies the same disgusting racist equivocations and double standards as always.
This is not a war. This is oppression. This is apartheid. You are stealing from an entire people. The Palestinians have ALWAYS held the moral high-ground against you. They were not immigrants. They were not colonists. Israel is occupying them, not the other way around.
This is a colonial conflict, that is the framework. It is not a ‘war’ between Israel and some other State or even a non-State actor. It is a war between Israel and a virtually defenseless population who are resisting their dispossession.
Over sixty years later, the US and Japan are close friends now. and we’ve been close friends for decades. The same can’t be said for forever-warring Israel. Seriously, you have been at war for the ENTIRETY of your existence. You are war.
And my point still stands. The United States never barged into Japanese homes, kicked out families and resettled our own people there. We also haven’t tortured Japanese children.
There’s a reason why your country resembles Germany in Poland and not America in Japan, eee.
“I am sure the Americans were loved in Japan right after Hiroshima and Nagasaki because apparently that is what you believe.”
Actually, I’m willing to bet that even immediately after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Americans in general were better liked in Japan than Israelis are among Palestinians. Even accounting for the numerous crimes that American occupational forces committed as well.
Sick and disgusting comment. I don’t agree with adults being subjected to this inhumane treatment; but we’re talking about CHILDREN!!!!!!! These children are resisting a FOREIGN OCCUPIER. They have every right to defend themselves! You sicken me!
“I disagree that Sleep deprivation is torture.”
“sleep deprivation is cruel, inhumane and degrading. If used for prolonged periods of time it is torture.”
This is delicious! A little bit of cruelty, inhumanity, and degradation should be all right in eee’s mind.
Look, a while ago, I had the privilege to see in which many ways eee was the typical Israeli fascist. I haven’t, since, seen anything that makes me change my mind.
So, you are okay with performing the techniques on children.
I want you to spend the rest of the day…and night doing a little exercise.
The next time your dog does the equivalent of throwing a stone, lock him in a closet. Next time your kid or grandkid actually does throw a stone, put them in a closet down the hall from the dog.
The keep them awake, don’t feed them, go in there and slap them around from time to time, call them names, etc.
If it is okay for a Arab child, it should be okay for yours, right?
Having been subjected to laughably mild intimidation by local law enforcement as an adult, and still knowing how unnerving that can be, I can only imagine how uncomfortable and frightening it must be to be at the receiving end of such interrogation and torture tactics for a child.
And as I stated, though laughably mild, the fear was in wondering just how far they were going to go. What was the upper limit on the humiliation and at what point would it stop? Plus, if I said or did the wrong thing, would it escalate further and the fear of unknown consequences and all that entailed.
This isn’t a frat hazing; this is bullying by state entities that kill and maim children, and their parents, and friends as a matter of course.
I don’t understand why mondo publishes these disturbing and emotive stories then censors responses that demand the crushing of the bones of state-sponsored child-torture.
I mean what the heck is the difference in damage between 6 hours of the torture and interrogation of a minor and six hours of the rape of minor? Why are mondo mods trying to dilute a legitimate human response to such an evil act?!
Sometimes to be politically correct can lead to ‘normalization’ of a crime.
When something evil and shocking is done especially to children, I think mods should allow raw expression of rage and disapproval.
I think we all have the ability to use ‘nice’ words to denounce things that are abhorrent. I know it’s a bit cathartic to let the nasty words out, but really, don’t you think the standard nasty words are a bit overused these days? Worse than being overused, they’re not as creative as they could be.
Personally the issue of torture is one of the issues that I try to censor myself quite a bit on. I find the use of state sanctioned torture to be beyond the usual words used to criticize something. Even the nasty words don’t give me the ability to convey my contempt of those who would use, or justify, state sanctioned torture.
“I think we all have the ability to use ‘nice’ words to denounce things that are abhorrent. I know it’s a bit cathartic to let the nasty words out, but really, don’t you think the standard nasty words are a bit overused these days? Worse than being overused, they’re not as creative as they could be”
Fuck, man. You got that shit right!
Should we be using ‘nice’ words to state our outrage at state-sponsored child-torture?
Clearly Shakespeare found many ways for his characters to express raw outrage without using “nasty” words AND most certainly without censorship.
It really isn’t about using ugly words, Karl, it’s about allowing the natural reflex of raw outrage at evils committed especially against children, to be fully expressed.
k, well, I might also be ex-navy and trying my best not to swear as much anymore…
I do swear as well, and this story made me post here for the first time after lurking for a while. Using curse words should be an art, and the raw rants do tend to get a bit repetitive. So, from that pov I can see why the site seems not to allow that.
I don’t think the usual curse words are sufficient to express how evil state sanctioned torture is. If you can swear in a manner that allows you to do that, then by all means do so. I’ve not seen someone swear in that manner since I left CFRS Cornwallis…
I agree with the sentiment.
In the USA, we are not allowed photos of the brutality of war…or even our own dead coming home.
Gestapo
there, I said it
anyone have any doubts now about what the rest of the world is dealing with when we talk about zionist israel?
“Gestapo”
Absolutely! All one needs to do is read eee’s comment above and there you have it. Torturing children a bit isn’t torture! It’s cruelty, yes, inhumanity, yes and degradation, yes but not torture…
How many collaborators were recruited after torture as teenagers ?
Israel has no future because it is run by psychopaths but dependent on outside trade and the 2 are incompatible long term because the foreigners who buy the goods are decent and Israel can never be.
As of 4:00 pm pst this story remains #1 as most read and #2 as most emailed at the Independent. Not clear what this means politically, but it does sound like a few more people in the world will be less likely to buy Israeli goods when they see the word “Israel” they will automatically think “child torture”. The word does seem to be getting out, slowly perhaps, but surely.
I have emailed it to my entire list.
Thanks.
David and Goliath. The irony of this story cuts in so many directions.
One has to wonder what they other side of the D & G story is…since the victor wrote the history.
Mahalo, Henry, for highlighting this sordid affair…!
I expanded it a bit… Boys Who Throw Stones…
Periodically, the ultra-Orthodox stage demonstrations against some evil of the modern world. At times these protests turn violent. Teenage boys will throw stones or endanger the lives of police and citizens in other ways. (Some years ago, a friend of mine was almost killed in one of these attacks.)
As with Palestinian protests, teenage boys use violence to express their community’s opposition to the laws of the State of Israel.
Both Palestinians and Ultra-Orthodox advocate changing the secular, Jewish state into something else: they are both “enemies” of the state.
In both cases, the parents overwhelmingly oppose their children’s conduct but are powerless to stop it.
Yet, whereas Palestinian boys are brutalized, Jewish children are treated with kid gloves. The Israeli public tolerates the torture of non-Jewish children but would be outraged if Jewish minors received the same treatment at the hands of the police.
The State of Israel’s essential racism is communicated and enforced at all levels of the state’s apparatus.
Of course Elliot, the ultra orthodox can throw stones freely, it is only violence when it is done by Palestinian children. Then they can bring out the torture chambers. That is what is known as Israeli Justice.
When I was 14, interrogations usually took place in the Principal’s office. He used to manage it without torture.
Kidnapping and torturing children in any way is pure evil.
The thing that always surprises me about Israel’s behaviour is how dumb it is. Does any thoughtful Israeli genuinely believe that Islam Tamimi will forgive and forget after what he’s been through? Will his parents, will his brothers and sisters? Will his friends and neighbours and others in his community?
By actions such as this, Israel is absolutely guaranteeing that the conflict will continue, that the Palestinians will redouble their liberation efforts, that thousands of people on both sides in the coming years will continue to suffer and die.
Lastly, the International community is reading and watching this stuff. The story is the most widely read of the entire paper that day. The Independent is a major British newspaper, highly influential within political and academic elites. Those elites shape policy, not least because in a democracy the citizens read and watch this stuff also.
If Israel continues doing this stuff, sooner or later (yes, probably later) it will find itself in the situation of white South Africa. Boycotted, sanctioned, hated, an international embarrassment almost universally loathed. It may take decades, maybe even a century or more, but Israel is doomed if it continues on this course.
“The thing that always surprises me about Israel’s behaviour is how dumb it is.”
It seems like institutionalized terrorism, to me…which we have been conditioned to accept as better than the kind performed by dark, swarthy men in robes, down dusty, winding back streets.
Is there a link to video itself?
“Pictures or it didn’t happen!” Holocaust denial 2.0.
Torture is never just, and very rarely effective. When effective, it remains a large gamble as to whether information derived is accurate.
Sleep deprivation beyond 24 hours is in fact torture. It is beyond discomfort.
And, just for record, torture is less violent than terror, less violent than summary execution to terrorize locals into conformity to factions’ discipline.
It is significant that Israel does not have a death penalty. Palestinian prisoners are not summarily murdered. They are denied due process, instead subject to military law, which is still law (and is comparable in many ways to the rule of solely judges accountable to religious guidelines in both literal halacha and sharia. The religious guidelines in both contain principles of rights of accused, if applied per the actual guidelines.).
Richard Witty said, ‘Look at this
‘”Just for record” — as though I’m some disinterested observer, only searching for the truth!! I’m lucky James North is around to interpret the jist (sic) of what I mean. Here I’m slyly insinuating, without any proof at all, that “Palestinian factions” are worse than Israel.’
the last paragraph is hilarious too:
“the jist” ;)
it’s true that the Palestinians are under military law, but since it is guided by principles that’s still “legal”, ultimately comparable to sharia law (halacha added for balance), which they would be subjected to anyway, if they did what every reasonable person would expect them to do: moved on into the countries of their Arabic brethren.
>> Torture is never just …
It’s a mild condemnation, but that’s better than no condemnation. (Strangely, however, RW still doesn’t know whether or not he condemns ethnic cleansing everywhere and always.)
>> And, just for record, torture is less violent than terror, less violent than summary execution to terrorize locals into conformity to factions’ discipline. It is significant that Israel does not have a death penalty …
And then come the apologetics. Bravo.
Oh for god’s sake, if you can’t say what you mean, clearly, then spare us the tortuous attempts at excusing Israeli torture and abuse of children. Apparently, in your confused state of mind, it is not very nice, but not as bad as those nasty Palestinian terrorists, and why, it’s just like sharia law. Stop your wheedling pretence, your insufferable attempts at excusing Israel, and your disingenuous, dishonest attempts at, yet again, blaming the Palestinians for everything they have to endure at the hands of tinpot fascists and torturers. If you’ve got nothing worth saying, don’t say it. And you don’t.
RW, torture is terror.
Using your logic, you would be okay with me using it on you, so you could grasp an understanding.
“It is significant that Israel does not have a death penalty. Palestinian prisoners are not summarily murdered.”
How stupid do you think we are??? Palestinian prisoners have been murdered while incarcerated! And Israel DOES have the death penalty in the form of extra-judicial executions!
Camp 1391:
“According to Leah Tsemel, an Israeli lawyer who specialises in advising Palestinians, “Anyone entering the prison can be made to disappear, potentially forever, it’s no different from the jails run by tinpot South American dictators.”
“Inmates are not allowed visits at the facility from the Red Cross, nor is any other independent organization permitted to inspect the site.[7] The prisoners are not told where they are, nor are their families or lawyers.”
link to en.wikipedia.org
Guards killing for fun and to boost morale:
“The whole operation was unnecessary, intended to promote self-confidence and to “boost morale” among the guards. As can be see near the end of the video, some guards are clearly enjoying themselves (not everyone – others are trying to prevent the situation from getting out of hands).”
link to 972mag.com
“Since 1967: 198 Palestinian prisoners have been killed by the IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces-ed] while in detention; 70 as a result of torture; 71 killed in cold blood after being arrested; 50 as a result of medical negligence; and 7 being shot dead inside prisons by the Israeli prison authorities.”
link to occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com
As usual Zionism does does the end-run around the law. As a matter of fact Israeli justice is racist and no justice at all! And one more thing: Israel’s policies against Palestine amount to child abuse for Palestinian children! Palestinian children under the occupation are subjected to deprivation, harrassment and beatings by settlers and IDF, kidnapping, physical and mental torture/trauma in many forms and illegal confinement.
Israel is a pariah Apartheid state with a racist kangaroo justice system which it inflicts on its captive Palestinian population. 700,000 Palestinians have been subjected to Israel’s prison system over the years! SHAMEFUL!
So for the record, Witty thinks torturing children who throw stones is less violent than children who throw stones. Also, we should laud Israel for not having a death penalty because Israelis are smart enough to summarily execute civilians BEFORE they are prisoners, as laid out in the Goldstone Report which Witty refuses to read.
Richard Witty …said
“It is significant that Israel does not have a death penalty. Palestinian prisoners are not summarily murdered. They are denied due process, instead subject to military law, which is still law…”
~~~~~
RW…Your zionist hasbara in excess of 10,000 posts… is purely hasbara for your beloved Apartheid Israel. The blood of all the Palestinian children is splattered all over their IDF killers hands & the supporters of Israel’s crimes. Israel murders Palestinian children & lies about it !!!
Click on link for details:
@@@@@
IDF Soldiers Never Go to Jail for Killing Palestinian. Never.
The Murder of Abir Aramin, Nine Years Old
by NURIT PELED-ELHANAN
“On a Tuesday afternoon, the 16th of January, an Israeli soldier shot his nine year old daughter, Abir, in the head as she was leaving school to go home. The soldier will not spend an hour in jail. In Israel, soldiers are not imprisoned for killing Arabs. Never. It does not matter whether the Arabs are young or old, real or potential terrorists, peaceful demonstrators or stone throwers. The army has not conducted an inquiry in Abir Aramin’s death. The police and the courts have questioned no one except for Abir’s sister, who was holding her hand while she was falling. The young sister was asked time and again how many meters were they from the school gate, from the kiosk, from the jeep.
There was hardly any investigation except for a private one by Bassam and his friends who know exactly who the killer is. But as far as the Israeli Defense Forces are concerned, the shooting did not happen. The army’s official account of her death is that she might have been hit by a stone that one of her classmates was throwing “at our forces.” That in the face of the finding of a senior pathologist, who worked for many years in an institute of forensic medicine.
One of the allegations against the evaders is that they have stopped believing in “values” such as sacrifice. Whose sacrifice, exactly? On what altar? To what god?
The soldiers of Israel are called upon to sacrifice children, parents, volunteers, and sometimes themselves on the altar of the megalomania of the insolent and corrupt leaders of the state of Israel, who have succeeded in converting this whole country into an altar on which they sacrifice other people’s children to the god of death. And no one is guilty of their deaths; no one is ever punished for the murder of a Palestinian child. The state takes care of those who serve it, sometimes. Other times it sacrifices even them, with the same cold-bloodedness and for the same reasons.
And the murderers? What about them? Do they know that they committed crimes? Do they toss and turn in their beds at night? Are they tormented by images of the small bodies that convulse and fall under their rifles, bombs and shells? Probably not. We know of no case in which any soldier turned himself in and expressed remorse for his actions. That is the biggest success of Israeli education: the distinction between blood and blood, between dead child and dead child, and the inculcation of the firm belief that the murder of Palestinians and their friends is not a crime.”
link to counterpunch.org
Richard Witty said, ‘RobertB: Please don’t trouble me with sources and facts. I’ve read Exodus, several times, and watched the film. I’ve even spent a few weeks in Israel, most recently in 1986. I know Israeli soldiers don’t behave like that unpleasant article you cited. They just can’t.’
Richard, it’s like some law of nature. Whenever you make some statement of general principles that any decent person would find unobjectionable (assuming they could decipher it), it’s guaranteed that you will follow up with some smarmy bit of apologetics for Israel. Sometimes it comes in a later comment, maybe the next day—here you couldn’t wait for more than four sentences.
Richard’s second law–Never criticize Israel without making it clear that the Palestinians are worse. Clearly the quantum theorists are wrong–we live in a clockwork deterministic universe.
RW, I’m sure you meant to say, “Palestinian prisoners usually are not summarily murdered,” because that would be factual. Not to worry, we’re used to your way of muddled thinking.
Let’s not forget that many of these children DID NOT THROW STONES in the first place!
Exactly.
According to the article, all kinds of kids are “named” by kids who are not in their right mind.
Of course in the idf’s mind, all arabs are rock throwers, etc….so they always get their man…I mean…kid.
But Kate! Didn’t you read Witty? The sheer TERROR that this children might be throwing stones at Israelis is worse than the prospect that the children are being tortured!
Richard Witty, you should really meet the young children who have been abducted and tortured by the IDF and talk to them. Clearly you have an idea of what constitutes torture. But to say in your clever dick construction ‘that torture is less violent than terror’ is pure rubbish and you know it. You are intelligent enough to know how offensive that sounds. Willful provocation is one thing in the give and take on this site but here we are talking about children for God’s sake, children! Can you not drop the propaganda mask for one-second man? Everything as described in the original article would be absolutely terrifying to these poor children – who might have done what, if anything, thrown a few stones? You are a father; imagine your son enduring this nightmare, imagine your reaction, imagine being humane?
Richard Witty said, ‘Tobias: Your comment is eloquent, but I’m too afraid to answer it. I’ll just jump in at the top of some new threads later, or tomorrow morning. I claim I want dialog (sic), but I never ever respond to heartfelt, telling comments like yours.’
Terror is the most abusive action one can take. Torture is close behind, but still behind.
There is a hypocritical and corrupt tendency for those in solidarity to similarly self-censor as to abuses of terror.
It is NECESSARY for dissent to distinguish its advocacy to NOT approve of terror as a means, not bombing school buses, to not firing RPG’s at buses, to not shelling civilians in small southern Israeli towns.
Otherwise, dissent will never be known as non-violent, but only temporarily adopting what they can conveniently call a non-violent tactic.
It is that important.
There is NO apology for torture in any of my comments. There should be no apology for terror in any of yours.
Richard Witty said, ‘More dishonest insinuations from me. “Dissent” is one of my pet cold words for principled human beings who nonviolently insist on human rights for Palestinians. Of course I know that “dissent” does not approve of “bombing school buses,” of “firing RPGs at buses”, of “shelling civilians in small southern Israeli towns.” “Dissent” actually promotes the nonviolent strategy of BDS, which I misrepresent and slander every chance I get.
‘My aim is simple: throw enough mud at “dissent,” and hope some of it will stick.’
You are in terminal denial if you don’t think those under torture or those seeing the torture implements coming across the room in the hands of the IDF specialist, toward them…does not terrify the child.
Hey, Witless Wonder, how about if those abducted and abused little boys had been ‘good’ little Jewish boys living in settlements, and beating their Palestinian neighbors with iron bars, not just ‘accused’ but for real? Would they have seen the inside of an interrogation cell, even if there had been dozens of iof witnesses? Hardly. Not one of the f*ckers would have borne witness against a ‘good’ little Jewish boy, now would they? In fact, DO they? Always there’s not enough evidence in those cases, and never any questioning, let alone of the harsh variety. Nor would they ever be asked to name others they knew had carried out what the rest of the world would call crimes. You two-faced hypocritical bar steward, those are the criminals on the ISRAELI side. Their terror is FAR greater and CONSTANT against the Palestinians.
>> Terror is the most abusive action one can take. Torture is close behind, but still behind.
1. Terrorism is an action. Terror is not.
2. Terrorism is not “the most abusive action one can take”. I defy anyone to take a group of Israelis who have lived through one year’s worth of terrorism, subject them to one year’s worth of torture (nothing particularly harsh – say, a year’s worth of sleep deprivation), and then ask them which of the two is “the most abusive action one can take”. If they are able to reply – that is, if their minds have not been reduced to complete JELL-O by the experience – I guarantee they will pick the latter as “the most abusive action one can take”.
>> There should be no apology for terror in any of yours.
Says the man:
- who supports as “necessary” the past ethnic cleansing of Palestinians;
- who continually glosses over Israel’s ON-GOING and OFFENSIVE (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder; and
- who has yet to completely rule out future bureaucratic or physical ethnic cleansing.
What a hypocrite.
Terror is the most abusive action one can take. Torture is close behind, but still behind.
….
There is NO apology for torture in any of my comments.
The first statement you made was an apology for torture. On a post about the torture of a 14year old child alleged to have thrown stones, you decide to rank terror worse than torture. Why bother with the ranking if not to apologize for torture? The child was not accused of a terror attack, he was no “ticking bomb” suspect, if there really ever is such a person. He is a child accused of something he may have never done, tortured so that he will name names of others that can be similarly tortured, in order for Israel to harass and maintain comtrol. (In that sense, it is an act of terror, as well as torture.) Why is it impossible for you to simply comment on the gross mistreatment of the child without excusing it?
Personally, given the choice, I would much rather have to run at a moments notice to an emergency shelter than have to face torture of myself or my child at the hands of those who thinks my life is worth less than theirs. Frankly, I’d even choose the much more frightening option to be terrorized by a terror weapon delivered from a nice shiny aircraft overhead (you know, the terror that you apologize for whenever Israel does it) than be waterboarded or physically tortured. So please, enough with the overbroad generalizations that don’t fit reality made simply to excuse Israeli behavior.
And also, since you’ve admitted that you would have “held your nose” while others were doing whatever was necessary to create the Jewish State of Israel, you have in fact admitted that terror, as committed repeatedly by the Haganah, Irgun, Lehi,Palmach and IDF, was acceptable to you for what you claim was the “greater good”. Terror and expulsion is what caused the flight of three quarters of a million Palestinians. You think it was excusable then. You think it is excusable now, when Israel does it. You apologize for torture and terror, as long as its Israel on the perpetrating end. That’s what is so hypocritical and pathetic about your comments here.
“. Terror and expulsion is what caused the flight of three quarters of a million Palestinians. You think it was excusable then. You think it is excusable now, when Israel does it. You apologize for torture and terror, as long as its Israel on the perpetrating end. That’s what is so hypocritical and pathetic about your comments here.”
Richard’s governing principle in all discussions is that ‘The Palestinians are always worse than Israeli Jews’. He really can’t criticize any action by Israel without claiming the Palestinians are worse. He would prefer to keep the conflict going than to go against this. To admit the seriousness of Israeli crimes would be, in Richard’s own words, “grovelling”. If he could end the conflict on terms that won’t inconvenience any Israeli Jew or involve admitting any serious wrongdoing by Israel then he’d be happy to let Palestinians have their shrunken state. Otherwise, no.
There’s another Richard principle I’ve only now formulated–as far as people in the US are concerned, “dissent” should be criticized, but not AIPAC. I’ve never seen him criticize AIPAC or the noxious influence the Israel Lobby has on American politicians. Maybe I’ve missed it. If he does ever criticize them he criticizes “dissent” far more. In Richard’s mind the fact that the mainstream Jewish organizations have enabled the occupation he claims to oppose is of trivial importance next to the fact that people here are critical of his posts.
Terror is the most abusive action one can take. Torture is close behind, but still behind.
A person performs torture on another.
A person experiences terror from another.
[Terror, while a noun, is an emotion, like extreme fear or being frightened. Under no definition of the word is terror an "abusive action."
The abusive action is torture.]
Check out some of these comments: link to acapella.harmony-central.com
If this is what Israel is willing to do to kids who merely may or may not have thrown stones at – gevalt! – an armored vehicle, let us imagine for a moment what they might have done to get the two teenagers targeted for the Itamar murders to confess, and indeed “recreate” the crime on demand (as it was no doubt dictated to them under duress). .
I know the Fogel case is considered by israelis to be “open and shut case” – for all intents and purposes. Yet, the doubts raised were never answered, the threads were not tied together, and the plan is to use the forced confessions as a way of avoiding trial raises not a few suspicions. No trial is kind of convenient, if you think about it. No need for defense attorneys poking holes in the plot line, no chance of a doctor being called to the witness stand to testify as to whether one of those young people were even capable of doing what the persecutors claim. Certainly no chance to expose alibis or probe into potential motives. Really, it’s all quite simple: they wanted some weapons so they went and got them from a well-guarded settlement, killing an entire family in the process, with nary a worry for the consequences.
If this entire web sounds fishy it’s probably because it is, The torture israel is willing to inflict upon children and the pogroms visited upon an entire village are the stuff of which nightmares are made of. Who wouldn’t confess to anything under those conditions?
I am raising this issue here, now, because as many pointed out here, torture can cause the strongest to confess, much less some young people. Personally, I believe the Fogel murders could well have been pinned on two individuals carefully selected as offering the least resistance, and the story of how they could have executed the crime was then “reverse engineered” by IDF and shabak experts so it would hold just enough water for conviction by a judge while avoiding the scrutiny of a trial. Why do i think this scenario to be likely? because the israeli persecutors act as if they have a few things to hide, the silence about the case making it look like the israeli powers-that-be are guilty of knowing something which cannot be shared.
This is certainly no conspiracy theory. Just look at what they do to extract confessions from the likes of the gaza engineer kidnapped from the Ukraine and Arab israeli caught in their web. When there are so many stories reflecting similar MO, perhaps it’s because there’s a plan that is followed. And the plan invariably involves torture.
let us imagine for a moment what they might have done to get the two teenagers targeted for the Itamar murders to confess, and indeed “recreate” the crime on demand
oh wow that would never ever occur to me like about a thousand times in the last few months/not.
that wasn’t very cordial of me danaa. let me rephrase. or not. how about i divert? have you ever heard of that neurobiology dept up @ The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. Rehovot is kind of an interesting place what w/all the nuclear mishmash/scientific research and other unsavory business. anyway i read about some research there.
whatever. google Mark Eisenberg and Yadin Dudai to read about their research. first read about it on abc but the link has since been scrubbed.
link to abc.net.au
it begs the question, if they can erase longterm memory than have they researched if you can replace it? and if so, with what?
First thought: Nazi medical experiments.
I haven’t read all 203 comments on this post, so forgive me if some of these things have already been mentioned.
Joseph Dana has been reporting for months now on the repression of nonviolent protest in Nabi Saleh, Islam Tamimi’s hometown, over at link to
While the Independent article is very good, the headline is a bit misleading. Islam Tamimi wasn’t arrested and tortured for throwing rocks (although that may have been the official justification). He was arrested solely because his adult cousin, Bassem Tamimi, is the head of the popular committee in the village. How do the Israelis know who’s who in the village? Because there was a systematic mapping operation conducted months ago to photograph and catalog all the male children (see link to 972mag.com
after which several of them were targeted for arrest, including Islam and his 11-year-old brother Kareem (video here: link to 972mag.com
It’s not just revenge. It’s a systematic, planned, entirely deliberate attempt to break an entire village community by attacking its children.
>> “He was arrested solely because his adult cousin, Bassem Tamimi, is the head of the popular committee in the village.” <<
Thanks Laura, I was wondering whether there was any connection between Islam and Bassem.
Bassem is such an inspiration. Read his statement to the Ofer military court in the Maannews article "Non-violence activist addresses Israeli military court", 06/06/2011.
Non-violence activist Bassem Tamimi’s address to Israel’s Ofer military court during his trial for organizing protests in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. A military judge refused to allow Tamimi to read his full statement in court.
Your Honor,
I hold this speech out of belief in peace, justice, freedom, the right to live in dignity, and out of respect for free thought in the absence of Just Laws.
Every time I am called to appear before your courts, I become nervous and afraid. Eighteen years ago, my sister was killed in a courtroom such as this, by a staff member. In my lifetime, I have been nine times imprisoned for an overall [period] of almost 3 years, though I was never charged or convicted. During my imprisonment, I was paralyzed as a result of torture by your investigators. My wife was detained, my children were wounded, my land was stolen by settlers, and now my house is slated for demolition.
I was born at the same time as the Occupation and have been living under its inherent inhumanity, inequality, racism and lack of freedom ever since. Yet, despite all this, my belief in human values and the need for peace in this land has never been shaken. Suffering and oppression did not fill my heart with hatred for anyone, nor did they kindle feelings of revenge. To the contrary, they reinforced my belief in peace and national standing as an adequate response to the inhumanity of Occupation.
International law guarantees the right of occupied people to resist Occupation. In practicing my right, I have called for and organized peaceful popular demonstrations against the Occupation, settler attacks and the theft of more than half the land of my village, Nabi Saleh, where the graves of my ancestors have lain since time immemorial.
I organized these peaceful demonstrations in order to defend our land and our people. I do not know if my actions violate your Occupation laws. As far as I am concerned, these laws do not apply to me and are devoid of meaning. Having been enacted by Occupation authorities, I reject them and cannot recognize their validity.
Despite claiming to be the only democracy in the Middle East, you are trying me under military laws which lack any legitimacy; laws that are enacted by authorities that I have not elected and do not represent me. I am accused of organizing peaceful civil demonstrations that have no military aspects and are legal under international law.
We have the right to express our rejection of Occupation in all its forms; to defend our freedom and dignity as a people and to seek justice and peace in our land in order to protect our children and secure their future.
The civil nature of our actions is the light that will overcome the darkness of the Occupation, bringing a dawn of freedom that will warm the cold wrists in chains, sweep despair from the soul, and end decades of oppression.
These actions are what will expose the true face of the Occupation, where soldiers point their guns at a woman walking to her fields or at checkpoints; at a child who wants to drink from the sweet water of his ancestors’ fabled spring; against an old man who wants to sit in the shade of an olive tree, once mother to him, now burnt by settlers.
We have exhausted all possible actions to stop attacks by settlers, who refuse to adhere to your courts’ decisions, which time and again have confirmed that we are the owners of the land, ordering the removal of the fence erected by them.
Each time we tried to approach our land, implementing these decisions, we were attacked by settlers, who prevented us from reaching it as if it were their own.
Our demonstrations are in protest of injustice. We work hand in hand with Israeli and international activists who believe, like us, that had it not been for the Occupation, we could all live in peace on this land. I do not know which laws are upheld by generals who are inhibited by fear and insecurity, nor do I know their thoughts on the civil resistance of women, children and old men who carry hope and olive branches.
But I know what justice and reason are. Land theft and tree-burning is unjust. Violent repression of our demonstrations and protests and your detention camps, are not evidence of the illegality of our actions. It is unfair to be tried under a law forced upon us. I know that I have rights and my actions are just.
The military prosecutor accuses me of inciting the protesters to throw stones at the soldiers. This is not true. What incites protesters to throw stones is the sound of bullets, the Occupation’s bulldozers as they destroy the land, the smell of teargas, and the smoke coming from burnt houses. I did not incite anyone to throw stones, but I am not responsible for the security of your soldiers who invade my village and attack my people with all the weapons of death and the equipment of terror.
These demonstrations I organize have had a positive influence over my beliefs; they allowed me to see people from the other side who believe in peace and share my struggle for freedom. Those freedom fighters have rid their conscience from the Occupation and put their hands in ours in peaceful demonstrations against our common enemy, the Occupation. They have become friends, sisters and brothers. We fight together for a better future for our children and theirs.
If released by the judge, will I be convinced thereby that justice still prevails in your courts? Regardless of how just or unjust this ruling will be, and despite all your racist and inhumane practices and Occupation, we will continue to believe in peace, justice and human values. We will still raise our children to love; love the land and the people without discrimination of race, religion or ethnicity; embodying thus the message of the Messenger of Peace, Jesus Christ, who urged us to “love our enemy.” With love and justice, we make peace and build the future.
That was a deeply beautiful and elegant speech.
I can’t imagine a human being able to communicate his heart any better.
Thanks for that.
>> That was a deeply beautiful and elegant speech.
+1. Truly impressive.
It will take a lot of braying from the Zio-supremacist crowd to drown out its message, but I have no doubt they’ll give it their best efforts.
Sadly, its message will probably never be heard by those who most need to hear it.
Unless…as one commenter there put it:
“I would like to see Tamimi’s story, including his full statement, in the Western media. Maybe send an extra copy to the White House, members of Congress, etc…”
It’s up to us to do what we can to see it gets out there.
A South African initiative:
SUPPORT BASSEM TAMIMI – A PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PRISONER
We, the undersigned, request support from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation to secure the release of Bassem Tamimi – an organiser of non-violent demonstrations against the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territory – and to investigate and monitor the escalating repression of non-violent demonstrations in the West Bank.
We commend the principled stance that the Department of International Relations and Cooperation has taken on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rooted in the affirmation of human rights and international law. It is in this spirit that we urgently seek your support. The struggle of the Palestinian people against Israeli Occupation is rightly recognised by the South African government as a struggle for equality, peace and justice.
On 24 March 2011, the Israeli government arrested Bassem Tamimi, a committed organiser of non-violent protests from the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. Tamimi is charged with ‘incitement’, ‘organising and participating in unauthorized processions’, ‘solicitation to stone-throwing’, ‘failure to attend legal summons’, and a scandalous charge of ‘disruption of legal proceedings’, for allegedly giving youth advice on their legal rights during police interrogations.
Bassem Tamimi’s case is a stark example of how the Palestinian people living under the Occupation are being denied their inalienable rights of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and the right to a fair trial. Tamimi has been at the forefront of the struggle against the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements onto the village land of Nabi Saleh.
As one of the organisers of the Nabi Saleh protests and coordinator of the village’s popular committee, Tamimi has been the target for harsh treatment by the Israeli army. Since demonstrations began in the village, his house has been raided numerous times, his wife has been arrested twice and two of his sons have been injured: Wa’ed, 14, was hospitalized for five days when a rubber-coated bullet penetrated his leg and Mohammed, 8, was injured by a tear-gas projectile that was shot directly at him and hit him in the shoulder. Shortly after demonstrations in the village began, the Israeli Civil Administration served ten demolition orders to structures located in Area C. Tamimi’s house was one of them, despite the fact that it was built in 1965 and should thus be exempt from demolition even under Israeli law.
As a veteran activist, Bassem Tamimi has been arrested by the Israeli army 11 times and has spent roughly three years in Israeli jails, though he has never been convicted of any offense. Furthermore, both he and his attorney were denied access to “secret evidence” shown to the judge, and were even barred from learning the nature of the allegations against him.
COERCED CONFESSIONS FROM MINORS
The case against Bassem Tamimi is largely based on the coerced confessions of two children, 14 and 15 years old, who were arrested at gunpoint in the middle of the night and beaten. The children were both questioned unlawfully, without being allowed sleep, and were denied legal consul and the right to have their parents present. In the case of the 14 year-old, it has already been proven in court that he was also not informed of his right to remain silent during questioning, but rather told that: “It will be best to tell the truth”.
Nabi Saleh has recently become a focal point of West Bank peaceful, unarmed protest against Jewish-only and illegal settlement expansion. As a result, the village has also become the target of increasingly aggressive repression by the Israeli army. Since demonstrations in the village began in December 2009, more than 70 protest-related arrests have been carried out by the Israeli military. This means that over 10 percent of the village’s 500 residents – men, women and children – have been arrested over the past 18 months. The Israeli army has gone so far as to take individual photographs of all male adults and minors living in Nabi Saleh.
Bassem Tamimi’s persecution mirrors the recent persecution of Abdallah Abu Rahmah, from the village of Bil’in, in both the charges and methods employed. The case of Abdallah Abu Rahmah provoked strong condemnations from many international leaders and activists such as Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Mary Robinson. The European Union also took a strong stand, which included a harsh statement by Baroness Catherine Ashton.
International support for Bassem Tamimi is growing. On June 14th 2011, the European Union expressed its concern that Palestinian “human rights defenders continue to be detained for their non violent protests”, mentioning specifically the case of Bassem Tamimi. The statement was given on behalf of the EU during the 17th session of the UN’s Human Rights Council. On 30 June 2011, the British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Alistair Burt, visited Nabi Saleh to meet with the wife of Bassem Tamimi.
The grassroots struggle against the Israeli “Separation Barrier” and the annexation of land by illegal settlements is no different from our struggle in South Africa against forced removals and the Group Areas Act.
As advocates for human rights and international law, we, the undersigned, cannot remain silent as Bassem Tamimi and his fellow villagers are denied even the basic right to protest against the illegal theft of their land. Your actions will give heart to all those struggling for Palestinian freedom.
WE REQUEST:
A statement from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation to the Israeli Ambassador and the Israeli Foreign Ministry demanding the immediate release of Bassem Tamimi.
That the South African Embassy in Israel and the South African Embassy in Ramallah monitor the ongoing trial of Bassem Tamimi. Bassem Tamimi will be appearing at Ofer Military Court on 28th August, 4 September, 11 September, 21 September, and 25 September 2011.
That the South African Embassies in Israel and Palestine monitor and investigate the escalating repression in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh and elsewhere.
That South Africa explicitly condemn the coercion and abuse of minors in Nabi Saleh and elsewhere in the Occupied Territories at the United Nations Human Rights Council.