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'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

aljazeera.com

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Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#471

Post by edanm »

leereeves wrote: post #302
edanm wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree that Israel should be held (and hold itself) to a higher standard than Hamas. I think one thing Israelis... dislike... is that often Israel is held to higher standards than every other country on Earth , is held to impossible standards. And when it falls short of those standards - it is considered proof that Israel is evil.

Under what standard is conduct like this acceptable? “One of the soldiers said I looked like his nephew and that this nephew was killed in front of his grandmother who was taken hostage by Hamas and that the soldiers will slaughter us all,” Those who dared to leave their homes for whatever vital errand were shot down in the streets by snipers. “They made us empty out our bags on the floor and blocked us from picking…

I don't trust a story reported by Al Jazeera, which is heavily biased against Israel, without outside verification.

That said, I'm sure Israel falls short of ideal on many occasions, not everything it does is exemplary, to say the least. On the whole, Israel's conduct is, I believe, moral and legitimate.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#472

Post by prewett »

theautist wrote: post #416
amluto wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think your take is entirely unreasonable, but I do think you’ve missed a critical detail: Hamas continues to attack Israel. So Israel’s military operation is contemporaneous with a threat, and does at least serve some degree of self-defense purpose. As I understand it (and wow, the press coverage is incomplete in so many ways), Hamas has a very large number of, approximately, these things: https://en.m.wikipe…

>So Israel’s military operation is contemporaneous with a threat, and does at least serve some degree of self-defense purpose There really is no self-defense purpose in my mind to what Israel is doing. It's more self-avenging as others mentioned. You can argue it's a preventative operation to prevent future attack by taking out Hamas, but the approach they're taking does not indicate that since it's completely counte…

How do you expect Israel to defend itself against an enemy that lives next door and is indistinguishable from the citizenry? Doing nothing is not an option: Hamas' explicit, public goal is the annihilation of Israel, and they are right next door. An analogous situation would be if some member(s) of the family next door publicly wanted you dead, and randomly shot at you, your family, and your house. But you don't know which ones, or how many, and you're pretty sure that most of the family is more or less okay with you living there. What do you think the police are going to do? And in this case, there is no police. So what is Israel supposed to do? (The reality is, there is no good solution, in part because Hamas engineered it that way, although I don't see any good solution even if they haddn't.)

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#473

Post by emmelaich »

cassepipe wrote: post #56

Those are the most serious allegations: "The men and teenage boys were taken to a warehouse where they sat on a bare floor covered in scattered grains of rice. There they were beaten, interrogated and verbally abused. There was no sleep, and the grains of rice cut their skin as they sat there, undressed." A man claims: "Some people didn’t return from the torture sessions. We would hear their screams and then nothing.…

I keep hearing "3. The defense has to be proportionate" but how does that make sense?

The point is to remove Hamas from a position of power. If that happens with fewer casualties, do they then continue war and kill a few more just to be "proportionate"? That makes no sense.

Also regard 2, if you genuinely feel your cause is just, the result you want is unconditional surrender.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#474

Post by ejb999 »

acdha wrote: post #124
cassepipe wrote: post #56

Those are the most serious allegations: "The men and teenage boys were taken to a warehouse where they sat on a bare floor covered in scattered grains of rice. There they were beaten, interrogated and verbally abused. There was no sleep, and the grains of rice cut their skin as they sat there, undressed." A man claims: "Some people didn’t return from the torture sessions. We would hear their screams and then nothing.…

> However supportive of Israel one may be and how repulsed one should be by Hamas, I'd say that we should not fool ourselves in that the military operation in Gaza is Israel defending itself ("Israel's right to defend itself" is now a commonplace phrase) rather than avenging itself. I’ve felt that as well, and I would add that even if you feel every action is justified I am skeptical that it’s not counterproductive.…

>>Each civilian killed by mistake has family, friends, and neighbors who might be inclined to avenge them and it’s hard for me to see how this doesn’t end up giving Hamas more recruits than they’re losing.

Both Japan and Germany have been pretty well behaved since the Allies ground them to the dust during WW2 - why do you think it couldn't work here?

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#475

Post by Levitz »

ashirusnw wrote: post #139
forty wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't defense also supposed to be targeted against an aggressor? How could the millions of innocent civilians that Israel is displacing, destroying all their houses and belongings and killing (and maybe torturing as described in this article), be considered in any way as aggressor? if a terrorist hid in an appartement building, and the police came, start killing all the inhabitants of the building and destroyed the b…

you and the OP are conflating civil war with laws of war. October 7th was clearly an act of war, and war has been the result. Hamas knew this, but relied on Hezbollah and Houthies pitching in in a much larger way, they miscalculated and Gaza suffers.

Gaza suffering is the best thing for Hamas. Israel is doing the best possible thing for Hamas and that's why Israel should stop. Because worse than unjustified, their actions are stupid, unless you are a politician saving face.

Pray tell, imagine yourself as a 10 year old Palestinian kid who lost half of his family, his house and several friends to Israeli military action. What are the odds that you are willing to die in order to harm Israel in any way, shape or form?

Again, this is the best scenario for Hamas. Their leaders are literally not even in Palestine, Israel could decimate the population thrice and chances are that the amount of terrorists would increase.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#476

Post by Invictus0 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #453
nahumfarchi wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think that is a reasonable take at all. 1. This is warfare, not civil law. Hamas, which is the sovereign in Gaza (there has been no Israeli military presence there for years), commited an act of war in which hundreds were killed, raped, and kidnapped. Israel, as a state, has the moral duty to fight back and make sure this never happens again. Otherwise, it breaks the most basic contract between citizen an…

You seem to be arguing from a bizarre perspective that Israel is the defender here. In reality, Israel is the aggressor, and Palestine is the state that has been under occupation and illegal blockade for decades. October 7th was an (illegal, abhorrent and criminal!) act of retaliation against previous Israeli aggressions, not an unprovoked attack. If Ukraine were to bomb a Russian city during the current war, no one…

Is there any reason to believe that a Palestinian state with full control of its borders would not immediately begin the process of accumulating weapons to repeat Oct 7? Hamas has never affirmed Israel's right to exist.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#477

Post by [deleted] »

krembo wrote: post #26
noworriesnate wrote: post #13

> “When they spoke to us in Hebrew and we wouldn’t understand, they’d beat us up,” he continues. > “They hit me in the back where my kidneys are and my legs. They took my family, and I don’t know where they are,” he says, his voice breaking. > Before they were forced inside the warehouse, Israeli female soldiers came and spat on the men, Mohammed recalls. > In the warehouse, it was common for groups of five soldiers…

Since the source is AlJazeera can you at least take these testimonies with a grain of doubt?

[deleted]

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#478

Post by dragonwriter »

emmelaich wrote: post #473
cassepipe wrote: post #56

Those are the most serious allegations: "The men and teenage boys were taken to a warehouse where they sat on a bare floor covered in scattered grains of rice. There they were beaten, interrogated and verbally abused. There was no sleep, and the grains of rice cut their skin as they sat there, undressed." A man claims: "Some people didn’t return from the torture sessions. We would hear their screams and then nothing.…

I keep hearing "3. The defense has to be proportionate" but how does that make sense? The point is to remove Hamas from a position of power. If that happens with fewer casualties, do they then continue war and kill a few more just to be "proportionate"? That makes no sense. Also regard 2, if you genuinely feel your cause is just, the result you want is unconditional surrender.

> The point is to remove Hamas from a position of power. If that happens with fewer casualties, do they then continue war and kill a few more just to be "proportionate"?

Proportionality is a maximum limitation in just war theory, not a measure of minimum acceptable violence. (The same is generally true in more personal law when proportionality is a component of self-defense provisions.)

> Also regard 2, if you genuinely feel your cause is just, the result you want is unconditional surrender.

No, you want a resolution with acceptable conditions which align with your cause: unconditional surrender necessarily achieves that, but it is by no means generally necessary.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#479

Post by [deleted] »

noworriesnate wrote: post #13

> “When they spoke to us in Hebrew and we wouldn’t understand, they’d beat us up,” he continues. > “They hit me in the back where my kidneys are and my legs. They took my family, and I don’t know where they are,” he says, his voice breaking. > Before they were forced inside the warehouse, Israeli female soldiers came and spat on the men, Mohammed recalls. > In the warehouse, it was common for groups of five soldiers…

[deleted]

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#480

Post by edanm »

nielsbot wrote: post #278
edanm wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree that Israel should be held (and hold itself) to a higher standard than Hamas. I think one thing Israelis... dislike... is that often Israel is held to higher standards than every other country on Earth , is held to impossible standards. And when it falls short of those standards - it is considered proof that Israel is evil.

Every other country? Which standards are you talking about?

Obviously this depends on who you're listening to.

Certainly, the chants for a ceasefire right now because there are civilian deaths in Gaza can be a way of holding Israel to impossible standards. No country on Earth can wage war without civilians being killed, so unless you believe that Israel isn't entitled to wage war against Hamas in this situation, it's not clear what a call for ceasefire means - Israel should just surrender?

Also, it's hard to tell how much of this is a Twitter bubble vs not, but the amount of people calling what Israel is doing genocide is very large (despite this being completely wrong), and many people are saying something to the effect of "nothing at all makes it ok to kill civilians", see above what that kind of statement means.

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