Plain, Senseless Thuggery
"The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) released its semi-annual report Sunday, detailing evidence of abuse inflicted on Palestinian detainees while being taken into custody by Israeli soldiers.
The report, dubbed "Unlawful in reality – soldiers' abuse of Palestinian detainees," unveils a series of cases in which Palestinians who were arrested and handcuffed were abused by IDF soldiers while being detained or transported to a holding facility, to the extent that some of them needed medical attention.
The PCATI report noted 90 testimonies of abuse between 2006 and 2007, but said the actual number of cases is higher. The IDF, said the report, is doing little to nothing to stop this abuse."
The newsflash is from here.
What really freaks me out is not really the article, but the public's reaction to it. Let us head over to Ynet and see what the readers think.
Right now, none of the commenters are even bothered that the soldiers are illegally abusing people. The only commenter who thinks this is disgusting is an American poster.
The locals post niceties such as this:
"send the human right group members for a training in China
these persons have nothing to do in their lives except to denounce bad jews."
Another fellow is 'not bothered by this' becase 'it means the IDF is fighting terror (despite having an incompetent government)'.
How does this mean that the IDF is fighting terorr?
Are these people, perchance, torturing terrorists to obtain useful information (which is illegal)? Are they perhaps interrogating them?
No, this is not the case. What we're talking about here is the soldiers grabbing some guys who may or may not even be terrorists, beating them - read the article! - and then handing them over to Shabak, who may or may not torture them for informatio. That is often illegal too, but that is not the point.
If one is a great fan of overreaching, sadistical government, they may argue here that torturing people for information should be legal.
But what purpose on earth does it serve to just grab people and beat them up?
One of the founding values of the IDF was supposed to be "the dignity of Man". How does it preserve the Dignity of Man to act like this? Do you suppose the dignity of Palestinian suspects is furthered by them being beaten up like that? Do you think the dignity of the soldiers is?
Why can anybody support this? What use is this to anyone, outside of plain, senseless thuggery?
P.S. I do not, naturally, believe that the IDF deliberately issues orders for soldiers to abuse Palestinians, or anything like that. However, the fact that a lot of people are okay with this behavior, and that the army does not properly investigate it, is symptomatic of many things wrong with our society.
The report, dubbed "Unlawful in reality – soldiers' abuse of Palestinian detainees," unveils a series of cases in which Palestinians who were arrested and handcuffed were abused by IDF soldiers while being detained or transported to a holding facility, to the extent that some of them needed medical attention.
The PCATI report noted 90 testimonies of abuse between 2006 and 2007, but said the actual number of cases is higher. The IDF, said the report, is doing little to nothing to stop this abuse."
The newsflash is from here.
What really freaks me out is not really the article, but the public's reaction to it. Let us head over to Ynet and see what the readers think.
Right now, none of the commenters are even bothered that the soldiers are illegally abusing people. The only commenter who thinks this is disgusting is an American poster.
The locals post niceties such as this:
"send the human right group members for a training in China
these persons have nothing to do in their lives except to denounce bad jews."
Another fellow is 'not bothered by this' becase 'it means the IDF is fighting terror (despite having an incompetent government)'.
How does this mean that the IDF is fighting terorr?
Are these people, perchance, torturing terrorists to obtain useful information (which is illegal)? Are they perhaps interrogating them?
No, this is not the case. What we're talking about here is the soldiers grabbing some guys who may or may not even be terrorists, beating them - read the article! - and then handing them over to Shabak, who may or may not torture them for informatio. That is often illegal too, but that is not the point.
If one is a great fan of overreaching, sadistical government, they may argue here that torturing people for information should be legal.
But what purpose on earth does it serve to just grab people and beat them up?
One of the founding values of the IDF was supposed to be "the dignity of Man". How does it preserve the Dignity of Man to act like this? Do you suppose the dignity of Palestinian suspects is furthered by them being beaten up like that? Do you think the dignity of the soldiers is?
Why can anybody support this? What use is this to anyone, outside of plain, senseless thuggery?
P.S. I do not, naturally, believe that the IDF deliberately issues orders for soldiers to abuse Palestinians, or anything like that. However, the fact that a lot of people are okay with this behavior, and that the army does not properly investigate it, is symptomatic of many things wrong with our society.
Labels: freedom
posted by MicroBalrog | 11:38 AM
2 Comments:
In CI warfare, either the occupiers are using torture an intimidation as part of a systematic strategy or it's counter-productive. If, in this case, it's simply soldiers who've watched too much `24' it suggests a low standard of military discipline within the Israeli armed forces - which, clearly, the Israeli commentators ought to be very worried about.
It wasn't even that.
They just smacked them around and beat them before handing them over to the real '24'-type investigators. Think "police brutality", not torture.
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