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Scurrilous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 10:34 AM
Original message
Troops suspected of abusing Palestinian teens
Three soldiers belonging to Kfir Brigade detained on suspicion of abusing two Palestinian boys; troops allegedly placed heater against face of one teenager; two soldiers admit to charges, judge slams 'cruel, violent conduct'

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3504407,00.html

<snip>

"Three IDF soldiers belonging to the Haruv battalion of the Kfir Brigade were detained Wednesday by Military Police investigators on suspicion of beating up two Palestinian boys and placing a heater against the face of one of them, Ynet has learned.

Kfir forces have been implicated in incidents involving problematic conduct twice in recent months. In one case, troops abducted a Palestinian taxi driver without authorization, while recently troops belonging to the brigade were videotaped exposing their rear ends to Palestinians and international activists in the West Bank.

In the most recent affair, there are also suspicions that the troops attempted to cover up the incident in question. A military judge who reviewed the evidence noted that it shows a "shocking picture of a joint effort by the three" and ordered that they be kept in custody for five days. All three soldiers were on the brink of completing their mandatory IDF service.

The investigation into the affair was launched after a female soldier who serves in the battalion turned to the battalion commander and told him that three soldiers beat up two Palestinian boys aged 16.5 a short time after they were detained on suspicion of burning tires.

According to the female soldier, the two Palestinian detainees were beat up while they were handcuffed and after their eyes were covered. The soldier, who witnessed some of the abuse, said that the troops kicked the Palestinians, hit them using hand restraints, and swore at them. The evidence submitted to the court includes a testimony that charges the soldiers with placing a heater against the face of one of the boys."
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acmavm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 11:11 AM
Response to Original message
1. Those IDF boys are such sweethearts. Too bad they're too
fucking stupid to know that their ignorant brutality will affect so many people both inside and outside of Israel.

Or maybe they just don't care.
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bemildred Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 11:14 AM
Response to Original message
2. THIS IS LUDICROUS.
Why aren't people shrieking about this?
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ProgressiveMuslim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 11:52 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. Why aren't people shrieking?
For the same reason that the world sits with its thumb up its ass while scores of thousands of Gazans go hungry.

For the same reason as the world has sat on its ass while Palestinians have had all basic human rights systematically denied for 60 years.

For the same reason that a nincompoop senator from NJ writes a congressional resolution to condemn the Kassams while he ignores the systematic destruction of the subjugated society.

Because the world does not regard Palestinians as fully real, fully human human beings. Some consciously, some not -- view Palestinians as subhuman.

It's the thing we pussyfoot around here all the time. Pockets of violent resistance are condemnation-worthy, but the majority of posters here, and fellow citizens in the US and abroad, are quite comfortable with a murderous status quo, that they would NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS ACCEPT FOR THEMSELVES.

That's my theory, anyway.



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azurnoir Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 12:19 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. even more at home in America
Edited on Fri Feb-08-08 12:20 PM by azurnoir
I relate to why people do not say much when Black kids get beat by the police (happens almost daily in my area), or when department store security beat a 14 yr old girl to the point of knocking out several teeth, it is shear bigotry and the perception that they "somehow deserved" this could be the Israeli version of "DWB"
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Tom Joad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 12:32 PM
Response to Reply #2
7. gosh, Progressive, it's not like anyone is asking that a concert be canceled
Edited on Fri Feb-08-08 01:22 PM by Tom Joad
where are your priorities?

:sarcasm:

edited,original was addressing wrong person, sorry about that.
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Violet_Crumble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 06:43 PM
Response to Reply #2
16. Heh...
Just spotted where that came from :)
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LeftishBrit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 11:54 AM
Response to Original message
4. Disgusting...
if they're found guilty, I hope that they are severely punished. If you don't make an example of people convicted of such abuses, then others think they can get away with it too.
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azurnoir Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 12:21 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. Don't hold your breathe for that n/t
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ProgressiveMuslim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 01:06 PM
Response to Reply #4
8. My question is for you: Why do you see this as an anomoly
Edited on Fri Feb-08-08 01:11 PM by ProgressiveMuslim
instead of a logical outgrowth of the current situation?

Everything about the way this situation is structured: massive #s of refugees, 40+year occupation, tens of thousands of dunams stolen "just because," massive ghettoization in Gaza, refusing to accept free and fair election results, labeling Palestinians as "militants" and "terrorists," (the list could go on and on here, we all know that) teaches people in Israel that paletsinians are "less than."

When young people act out what they're taught, can you really blame them?

I know so many people in Gaza who have been abused and tortued by, not on the Shin Bet (for information or whatever) but by the IDF -- FOR FUN!

I've told you this before... my brother-in-law has cigarette burn scars on the back of his neck from when young soliders extinguished their butts on his neck, while he was cuffed.

How can a human do that for fun? They do it when they don't see other as human beings, but as things.



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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 01:17 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
LeftishBrit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 01:38 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. They were clearly breaking the rules and are in trouble - but yes, in some ways it's NOT an anomaly
Edited on Fri Feb-08-08 01:39 PM by LeftishBrit
This is what happens in war. People learn to regard the enemy as non-human; as all-bad and deserving of violence. In Robert Graves' autobiography, "Goodbye to All That" he tells of his experiences as a British soldier in WW1 (where he was seriously wounded and lucky to survive). The military instructors taught the soldiers 'that they must HATE the Germans and KILL as many of them as possible'. They were shown ways of physically attacking all parts of the body of model 'Germans'; egged on to ever-icreasing violence; reprimanded if not violent enough. Soldiers and civilians alike referred to the Germans as 'Huns' and told all sorts of true and false atrocity stories about them.

If you regard your enemy as pure evil, an alien different from yourself, it's easier to kill and harm without the guilt that all non-psychopaths usually feel for murdering or seriously injuring other *humans*.

Add to this that those who fight in wars are young adults, those who even in peacetime are the most likely age group to be caught up in gang violence and the like, and the potential for evil becomes clear.

Israel is 'on the continuum' because it's at war - just like Hamas - and just like Iraq and the USA and UK. Just like Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland until recently. Just like all humans at war. The evil isn't Israel, or Palestine, or Iraq, or the USA, or the UK. The evil is war.

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ProgressiveMuslim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 01:52 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. It's not equally shared, LB. You kid yourself.
Palestinians see Israelis as power-wielding-humans, not sub-humans.

It's dishonest on every level to deny the unequal power structures of this conflict.

Israel's "soul" is the very last thing I give a hoot about, but what happens to a country that engages in dehumanizing an entire other national group for multiples decades?

I wish you'd take a few minutes to think about what I'm suggesting rather than shooting back the same platitudes from the hip.
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LeftishBrit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 04:38 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. It is a question of seeing the enemy as non-humans, not necessarily sub-humans
Edited on Fri Feb-08-08 04:43 PM by LeftishBrit
The enemy may or may not be seen as 'animals' or 'inferiors'. But they are seen as devils. Sometimes they are seen as inferior; dangerously clever and powerful; but they are generally seen as one-dimensionally evil.

This IS in my view a universal phenomenon - whether the power structures are equal or not. The latter is relevant to how to resolve the problem; but not to the problem itself.

Do you not think that the same occurs on the other side: that many Palestinian militants think that all Israelis are evil, and that any attack on them is justified? And at least in this case, the IDF sets limits regarding what is regarded as officially acceptable behaviour - even if these are too often broken. The soldiers MIGHT be punished by their own leadership for their disgusting actions in this case; Hamas militants are most unlikely to be punished by their own leadership for killing or maiming Israelis.
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ProgressiveMuslim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 04:47 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. I don't think it's the same at all
for reasons I explained above.

Choosing to launch an attack as a political strategy is qualitatively different than putting out a cigarette on someone's neck for the entertainment value.

I would argue that those soldiers saw those kids as sub-human. I think the ability to sustain a 40+ human rights abrogation requires Israeli society as a whole to view Palestinians as less than human. How else can they do it? How could anyone live with treating human beings like that for so long? How else can you explain the ability to say: I as a human being, have the right to vote, move, educate myself, work and raise a family.

How else can Israel justify the fact that Palestinians aren't entitled to those same rights?
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 02:29 PM
Response to Reply #9
12. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
Violet_Crumble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 06:39 PM
Response to Reply #12
15. Have you ever met a Palestinian?
Palestinians think Israelis ALL deserve to die. Every single one, and they have spent 60 years trying to kill as many as humanly possible. If they had their way they would kill ALL Israelis/Jews. That's what they say, and their actions prove they are serious.

You have the nerve to complain when similar things are said about Israelis, yet yr constantly doing this when it comes to Palestinians....

Don't you dare compare the treatment of Palestinians to the treatment provided to concentration camp Jews. Don't you dare.

Sorry about the ciggie burns, but your relative is still alive while many of ours are all dead, gassed to death.


PM didn't make that comparison, so yet again it's a case of you saying people have said things they haven't said....

And you know what's truly pathetic? You using the Holocaust as a yardstick to measure things. If yr going to try to convince anyone you give a toss about anything done to a Palestinian, drop the ugly *but* followed by 'it's not as bad as the Holocaust' from yr posts...
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ProgressiveMuslim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-08-08 08:40 PM
Response to Reply #15
17. Did that poster even read what I wrote? I think not.
Edited on Fri Feb-08-08 08:40 PM by ProgressiveMuslim
But damn, those Pals outta be grateful, huh?
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notfullofit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-03-08 06:20 PM
Response to Reply #8
20. Both sides are as guilty as sin when
it comes to teaching schoolkids how to hate.

snip....

Other "highlights" of the "Children's Club":
▪ Groups of children are gathered together, shouting for "Jihad against Israel."

▪ One girl, who appears to be in a Palestinian school classroom, sings of donning "battledress" to "attack the Zionists."

▪ A small girl chants the now-familiar ditty, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber."

▪ An adult narrator reads material in a Palestinian school pamphlet: "I have raised my children for jihad and on the principle that they never give up on their land."

▪ One segment depicts a small boy on the street chanting, "Revolution until victory."

▪ Another boy is shown in class proclaiming, "We will settle our claims with stones and bullets."
In Palestinian school classrooms, the message is the same.

"It's very scary ― it's a state-run educational system that teaches its children to be martyrs," said Meyrav Wurmser, Ph.D., an expert in Middle East politics who taught at the U.S. Naval Academy and Johns Hopkins. Wurmser is the author of the recently published book, "Schools of Ba'athism," in which she makes a comprehensive survey and analysis of Syrian school textbooks. What she found is identical to what goes on with the Palestinians, she says.

"In the Palestinian case, what we see is the cynical use of children, who are exposed to a state-run ideology that pushes them to their death, in the name of Palestinian nationalism," she says. "Children are taught to idealize death, to view it as a positive. In many cases, they are told that death is not death at all, but rather the beginning of a new life."

Wurmser is currently the executive director of The Middle East Media & Research Institute, or MEMRI, and has published extensively on the Middle East and Arab and Israeli politics.

How can children be sold on dying in battle?

"The state threatens children if they're not willing to commit jihad," says Wurmser, "and tells them they will be punished by God if they do not commit jihad. If they do commit jihad, they and their families will be benefited by the state. are promised major financial benefits if they kill themselves in suicide attacks against Israel."

To get over the fear, explained Wurmser, "they are told by their teachers that they're not going to die at all. There is definitely an element of denial they are exposed to."

This is not to say that some parents won't object to having their children converted to terrorists, says Wurmser, "but in the more religious families, there is no sense of sorrow. We see Palestinian mothers who have lost children ― especially parents from very fundamentalist Muslim backgrounds ― who are not upset at all, but who say their sons have brought great honor to their families." This is typical, she says, of "radical national Arab regimes who have adopted the Islamic line."

This shocking assessment was bolstered in an Oct. 27 Jerusalem Post editorial, in which writer Gerald M. Steinberg provided details of statements made by Palestinians to reporters after their children had been killed in fighting.

"Interviewed by journalists after tragedies, some of the parents of these young victims refer to their children as shaheeds (martyrs), whose lives were given willingly and proudly to the Palestinian cause in fighting the hated Zionist enemy," Steinberg said.

"In an unbelievably shocking scene, one mother boasted that she bore her son precisely for this purpose, and the father proudly claimed credit for providing the training. The parents will also receive a sizeable financial 'reward' from the Palestinian Authority," he said

http://www.teachkidspeace.org/doc112.php
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Scurrilous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-09-08 07:26 PM
Response to Original message
18. Arab MK: Even Mussolini's soldiers didn't act like IDF
Left-wing politicians respond to arrest of IDF fighters on suspicion of abusing Palestinian detainees, as reported by Ynet. Meretz Chairman Beilin: This is a systematic problem rather than a local one. 'This proves that the occupation corrupts,' says Hadash MK Khenin

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3504516,00.html

<snip>

"This is a systematic problem rather than a local one, Meretz Chairman Yossi Beilin said Friday following the arrest of three IDF fighters on suspicion of abusing Palestinian detainees, as reported by Ynet.

"The defense minister and the IDF chief of staff must address this problem as a serious failure of the system and not settle for the IDF spokesperson's explanations on a local treatment," Knesset Member Beilin added.

Ynet learned Friday that three IDF soldiers belonging to the Haruv battalion of the Kfir Brigade were detained Wednesday by Military Police investigators on suspicion of beating up two Palestinian boys and placing a heater against the face of one of them.

MK Beilin said in response to the report, "The IDF is paying a terrible price today due to the ongoing occupation, which is both expressed in the failures of the Second Lebanon War and in the army's moral image – as reflected in this recent incident.

"Even before providing a diplomatic solution, the IDF must save itself both from its operational and from its ethical collapse."
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Scurrilous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-03-08 05:07 PM
Response to Original message
19.  Soldiers who abused Palestinians get 5.5 months in jail
Jaffa Military Court rules three troops won't be demoted from staff sergeants to privates, despite plea bargain

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3551626,00.html

<snip>

"The Jaffa Military Court on Tuesday sentenced three fighters of the Haruv Battalion to five and a half months in prison after convicting them of abusing two Palestinian detainees about four months ago.

The judges also ruled that despite a plea bargain, which stated that the three would be demoted from staff sergeants to privates, they would only be demoted to the rank of sergeant.

According to the judges, demoting the soldiers to the rank of private would be a heavy punishment, and in light of their service in the territories, they should maintain a commanding rank.

The three were convicted of attacking two 17-year-old Palestinians while watching over them at their base in the settlement of Shavei Shomron. They beat them while they were handcuffed and they eyes were covered, cursed them, forced them to say words in Hebrew, and at one point even attached a heat conductor to one of the youths' face."

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notfullofit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-03-08 07:52 PM
Response to Reply #19
21. Fair enough. nt
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ProgressiveMuslim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-03-08 09:49 PM
Response to Original message
22. Self-Delete.
Edited on Tue Jun-03-08 09:51 PM by ProgressiveMuslim
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