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

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

#91
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why is Israel’s reaction worse? They seem to be reacting to an unprovoked attack by an openly genocidal neighbor with a pretty big-standard conventional war to eliminate the problem regime. I’m not saying that Israel couldn’t be more mindful of optics or civilian casualties, but how is this war not justified?

It's a question of proportionality. Some responses are justified, others not. The question is whether the current response is justified or excessive.

One can deplore Oct 7 without calling it unprovoked. This conflict goes a long way back.

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

#92
post #81
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Sometimes the Onion hits it out the park: "Israel Assures It Doing Everything Possible To Minimize Civilians" https://www.theonion.com/israel-assures-it-doing-everything-...

The Canadian Onion has some great articles too:

"Spineless fence-sitter thinks killing children is bad no matter who does it": https://www.thebeaverton.com/2023/10/spineless-fence-sitter-...

https://www.thebeaverton.com/tag/israel/

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

#93

My political awareness was forged by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the American response. The core lesson: the point of a terrorist attack is to trigger an over reaction. America wildly over reacted and became fundamentally hostile to Arab and Muslim people. This reaction led to some of the most successful recruiting of radicals in generations. Israel's response to this crisis seems to have failed to learn from that…

Israel's response tends to stem from a history of oppression which is where it gets touchy. Jewish have not exactly been treated well for most of the 20th century. Not saying that is a reason to invoke that upon someone else, but it tends to be where most thoughts come from. A sense of if we don't do something we'll lose "our" home.

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

#95

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.…

The Israeli military also claims to be trying to rescue hostages, though whether it's prosecuting the most effective strategy there is hotly debated.

It's ... interesting ... to note that this is precisely the sort of "ticking time bomb" scenario often raised in justification of torture and rampant surveillance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticking_time_bomb_scenario>

It would be interesting to see how well the abusive and transgressive approach fares against one that's far more sympathetic to the interrogatee. U.S. experience from the Iraq war was that soft-touch interrogations were far more effective.

This past November, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind “24.” Finnegan, who was accompanied by three of the most experienced military and F.B.I. interrogators in the country, arrived on the set as the crew was filming.... Finnegan and the others had come to voice their concern that the show’s central political premise—that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security—was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. “I’d like them to stop,” Finnegan said of the show’s producers. “They should do a show where torture backfires.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/02/19/whatever-it-ta...>

(There are other instances of F.B.I. and military interrogators reporting both that testimony obtained under torture is either misleading or no more accurate, useful, or timely than that obtained under sympathetic treatment. I believe there was a Fresh Air Interview following 9/11 / the 2nd US-Iraq War though I've yet to locate it. There's a searchable archive for anyone with stronger search-fu here: https://freshairarchive.org/>. Specifically matching "interrogation": https://freshairarchive.org/search?keyword=interrogation>.)

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

#96
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the "benefit of the doubt" has been lost in relation to this subject. I no longer believe it is possible to have any thread about this remain civil. It's tragic and a tragic subject, although I dispute the "there couldn't be a more significant current event" - lots of events are equally (or more) significant and relevant. I hope to be proven wrong, but I have doubts.

[flagged]

" I am talking about women/children. " Can you elaborate, what makes especially women special as a victim?

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

#98
post #31

The only take that made any sense to me about what's going on there - https://michael-hudson.com/2023/11/israel-as-a-landed-aircra...

Name a conflict or intervention by the US in that region that has made use of US assets based in Israel. Hint: there aren't any. We instead use assets in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, etc. Using anything based in Israel would cause more problems than would be solved.

Israel isn't really an asset to the US, it is more of a liability that we tolerate.

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

#99

My political awareness was forged by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the American response. The core lesson: the point of a terrorist attack is to trigger an over reaction. America wildly over reacted and became fundamentally hostile to Arab and Muslim people. This reaction led to some of the most successful recruiting of radicals in generations. Israel's response to this crisis seems to have failed to learn from that…

All reports are that Netanyahu and the Israeli intelligence services knew this attack was coming. They've been promoting Hamas over more moderate elements in Gaza. The goal was to provoke an attack which would "justify" a counter-attack to completely level Gaza and kill or force out all the remaining civilians.

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

#100

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.…

Nations at war defend themselves by degrading the military might and desire to wage war of the enemy state. I find Israel's actions to be overly callous towards civilian death, but it's important to keep in mind that civilian death was inevitable once the government of Gaza decided to invade Israel and intentionally target civilians.
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