3 Israeli Doctors Arrested For Illegal Experiments On Thousands Of Patients

[Jcrowley]

JERUSALEM: Three Israeli doctors are under arrest over illegal experiments on thousands of patients, including an elderly concentration camp survivor who narrowly escaped being a victim of the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.

These human trials involving mostly old and mentally disturbed patients - some of whom died - echo those in the Auschwitz concentration camp in World War II. Berta Wiesel, 83, was among the dead. She was sent to Auschwitz from Ukraine and forced to part from her twin sister to escape Mengele's experiments.

The doctors include the deputy director of a prominent geriatric facility. Among the experiments conducted for several years until 2004 were invasive procedures on the stomach and bladder.

During one with an appetite stimulant, patients in a "control group" were left underfed for several weeks. Some on whom experiments were conducted gave permission only with a thumbprint.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/experiments-on-elderly-echo-nazis/2006/10/24/1161455724091.html

[Poll_Blind]

1. It's no "Ringworm Children" but that's still pretty terrible.

Of course, the "Ringworm Children" is probably the worst thing that Israelis have done to Israelis. Still...terrible stuff, especially about the poor woman who survived Auschwitz only to die in another sick experiment.

PB

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. Wanna hear spin? Here it is!

These 3 doctors and the others (5, I believe) are from a population of a nation of 7 million people! Why are their actions an indictment against ALL Israelis?!?! Why should all Israelis be 'saints?' In a nation of 7 million, do you not think that there might just be a few "bad apples?" All three comments here indict the Israeli people, not the doctors responsible for these gruesome experiments. This is just yet one more example of the unfair burden that all Israelis bear, especially here with certain posters.

These doctors should be investigated, and if found guilty, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law! But, their actions should not be used as an indictment against the peoples of Israel, by which many posters here find them "guilty, until proved innocent," and even then, it is still questioned!

[Poll_Blind]

5. I'm sorry that you received the impression that somehow my...

...comments implicated all Israelis. I reread my comments and I don't see it. I consider the "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment", from American history, to be worse because unlike this case, the TSE was carried out by the U.S. government, itself. I don't include little disclaimers like that. Almost nobody does when they're posting online, even though they really help a person to interpret their words.

  But presumably you don't trust the motivations of the three posters in this thread to assume we're doing anything more than just taking a big giant dump on Israel every chance we get. I don't think I can change that perception because, frankly, we do laud Israelis on a regular basis.

  You just happen to hate them too, so it doesn't register.

  I'm not supposing to speak for the other posters here but I like people and organizations like Gush Shalom, Amira Haas, Gideon Levy, Israelis Against the Wall, Uri Avnery, the refuseniks who sit in Israeli prisons for refusing to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the other Israelis who struggle against influence of the conservative right-wing elements there or to document their actions.

  But I don't think you believe those people represent the real Israel, that they represent those who would invite harm to her people. I can't do anything about your perceptions on those counts. You, like near every regular poster on I/P (certainly including me) has some deep, really deep emotional connection to the situation and that's why we come here to abuse ourselves against each other while we argue for what we think is right. I've never met anyone who regularly argued I/P issues who didn't give up something important in their life to do it, starting with their most-precious commodity: their time.

  The way I figure it, if anyone here really wants to see Israel or Palestine destroyed there are a lot more effective uses of their time than arguing here. So I presume that everyone is just arguing for what they think is right, and that usually means bitching about what they think is wrong.

  We've all got investments in our positions, usually that we've formed over the course of years. We mistrust and often deeply dislike those on the other side of the argument for what we feel are cold-hearted or racist statements, or whatever. But it's dangerous to get so wrapped-up in one's own beliefs as to believe that those who disagree with you exist only to antagonize in some chimerical, caricaturish way in perpetuity and in hopes of some ultimate destruction or denigration.

  I know I might as well be speaking into thin air, but there ya go.

PB

[Behind the Aegis]

6. A response from the air.

"I'm sorry that you received the impression that somehow my comments implicated all Israelis."

Your response is the weakest of the three in my implications of 'indicting all Israelis.' I didn't base it just on that post, but on your history of posts about Israel, especially stories where Israel or Israelis are the "villains." However, the person to whom I responded, who implies I am a member of the "Israel-can-do-no-wrong crowd", very much implies all Israelis with these remarks: "OMG! This is especially infuriating, sickening and heartbreaking given who is carrying out the experiments and considering what their people have been through at the hands of others who thought of them as animals, and not people. and "To think the the descendants of their victims, in their own country, would now do such things to their own citizens, some of whom suffered through the horror, themselves, of the Holocaust, is truly unsettling and depressing." First of all, is she privy to information that we are not? Does she know that these doctors are 1) Jewish, and/or 2) descendants of Holocaust victims? Perhaps. But I am guessing, she saw "Israeli" and made her response based on that, conflating "Jew" and "Israeli." The other poster, well, he just says: "Israelis are the last people I would have thought would reduce themselves to this kind of thing." Both respondents are placing this 'status' on all Israelis to be beyond reproach. Can you see that?

"...we do laud Israelis on a regular basis."

I am not sure whether to laugh or not. But, it does present an interesting dilemma. For someone who is labeled as "pro-Israeli," considering my stance on your examples, I guess I am not always "pro-Israeli" nor a member of the "Israel-can-do-no-wrong crowd." In turn, that would mean that you and your ilk are not always "anti-Israeli." Interesting.

"But I don't think you believe those people represent the real Israel, that they represent those who would invite harm to her people."

By your use of italics, you think they do represent the 'real Israel.' I think they represent a fringe (some of them, there are those who are for peace, but not at the expense of Israel's existence), much the same way the right-wing racists represent a fringe. The "real Israel" are those that see that they should be allowed to exist and that they are willing to make concessions, but it shouldn't be at their very own existence as a sovereign nation! The 'real Israelis' want peace, just not at "any price."

Have you ever wondered why there is an I/P forum? Ever?! Because Israel, unlike most nations, cannot be discussed by many without resorting to anti-Semitic canards, calls for ethnic cleansing, comparisons to the Nazi regime, and the expectations that Israel is supposed to be the "saint" of all nations!

The truth is, as I see it (IMO), is that many here are not "pro-Palestinian," they are simply "anti-Israeli!" If they were really pro-Palestinian, they would commend their good works, and condemn their bad ones. But, post after post, the main target is Israel. Look at the current rancor about the admission of Lieberman to the Knesset coalition. Where was that howling from the "pro-Palestinians" when Hamas was elected? Do you think they are liberal? Progressive? No. Hamas was elected and it was lauded as the "will of the Palestinian people." Then, there were the posts that because of the actions of Israel is the real reason Hamas was voted into power. The current civil war in Gaza? Israel's fault. The deaths caused by that violence? Israel's fault. To the "pro-Palestinians," it is always Israel's fault!

Where we agree, is that we do invest our time and our passions. But, you don't get labeled a "freeper" or someone "pretending to be a liberal." However, I don't care. I know who and what I am. I am pro-Israeli because I am pro-Israeli and not anti-Palestinian. I think there are more than few here that wouldn't be able to say the same in reverse.

[liberalhistorian]

7. Oh, the irony!

I did not mean to imply that all Israelis are at fault and guilty. But do you not see that that is the reasoning you use against the Palestinians and against the Lebanese this past summer? According to you and your compatriots, ALL Palestinians, Lebanese, are all guilty, they're all Hezbollah supporters or they should have stopped Hezbollah, etc., etc., ALL of them are guilty in your eyes. You didn't and don't make any distinctions between the people and the government, Hezbollah, etc. The double standard is unbelievable.

[liberalhistorian]

8. No comment on that, BTA?

Or does it hit too close to home?

[Behind the Aegis]

9. It was too stupid to comment on.

Besides, it wasn't true.

[liberalhistorian]

10. Really? During the

summer bombardment of Lebanon, all we heard from you and too many others was that the Lebanese civilians were all guilty in some way, either as Hez supporters or voters for the government that allegedly supports Hezbollah, and all we hear in discussions of Israeli treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere was how they were all terrorist supporters who should rein in Hamas and Hezbollah and terrorism. Again, the double standard is incredible. Just stamping your foot and saying it isn't true doesn't make it so.

[Behind the Aegis]

11. Repeating it still doesn't make it true.

During the Israeli-Hizb'allah war, I actually corrected many of 'your people' who kept saying Israel was fighting Lebanon, when, in fact, they were not. I made it clear that it was not the fault of the Lebanese, but that fact that their weak government had exposed them to the dangers posed by 'allowing' Hizb'allah to remain in power in the south. As for the Palestinians being terrorist supporters, recent polls would indicate that more than half do support suicide bombings inside Israel. That doesn't mean they all do. It is also a survey for which I could not see the actual questions posed, even if it was from a Palestinian source, I don't know that I believe that "fact."

Since you seem to have missed the point, let me help you out. When discussing conflicts between countries/entities, then one generally speaks in general terms (i.e. Israeli, Lebanese, American, British, Afghani, etc.), however, what you and the other posters have done is indicted ALL Israelis based on the actions of eight doctors! A counter example would be: 5 Palestinian engineers suspected of embezzlement. Then, someone coming along and saying: "How could a people who have been victimized for so long, including embezzlement turn around and do this to others?" See how that works? It went from a "specific" group (in this case, 5 Palestinian engineers) to a general group (ALL Palestinians)! You did that in this post in regards to the Israelis, as did, breakaleg and, to a much lesser extent, Poll_Blind. You took a charge against 3 (8 in total, I think) and made into a charge against the entire population.

So, you are correct, the double standard is incredible, it just isn't me applying the double standard!

[cali]

12. Really?

I didn't see a mad stampede of posters saying that Lebanese civilians were all guilty in some way. In fact, I saw very little if anything akin to that, and certainly not the large numbers you're claiming. Yes, there are always extremists in both camps, but as you've provided no links for your claims, there's no reason to accept them.

[breakaleg]

3. What will it take for people to learn life's lessons?

Israelis are the last people I would have thought would reduce themselves to this kind of thing.