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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

#951

Post by Agraillo »

Mosab Hassan Yousef [1] in his book "Son of Hamas" described what it was like to be in Moscobiyeh [2].

"I have been sitting on this chair for three weeks," he said finally. "They let me sleep for four hours every week." I was stunned. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. Another man told me he had been arrested about the same time I was. I guessed there were about twenty of us in the room. Our talking was suddenly interrupted when someone struck me in the back of the head-hard. Pain shot through my skull, forcing me to blink back tears inside the hood. "No talking!" a guard shouted.

( you can find this text with the search https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=%22I+have+been+sitti... )

After reading the book and about him in other places, I think he is very unlikely source of fakes.

I think that any nation might be in a state when it is semi-aware of such practices. It's when on those allegations many reply not by questioning them, but by telling how bad the other side is. In many cases after cooling off, the nation might start questions about questionable practices. The problem with Israel is that the country in in permanent state of war and I suspect (correct me) that many citizens are really semi-aware of all of this. I just hope that the moment when the questions are asked will come.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosab_Hassan_Yousef

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscovia_Detention_Centre

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

#953

Post by malcolmgreaves »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #100
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.…

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.

> government of Gaza

Hamas is not the government.

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

#954

Post by ejb999 »

biorach wrote: post #937
ejb999 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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?

> 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? The grinding into dust was a small part of the reason for the successful outcome The main victor in WWII poured vast resources into rebuilding the economies of Germany and Japan, ensured their viability as nation states, fostered democracy and encouraged the creation of an en…

grinding them into the dust was not a 'small part of the reason', it was the only reason it worked in the first place. What do you think would have happened had the allies given billions of dollars in aid to Germany while the Nazi's were still in power? They would do exactly what the Palestinians have done with the aid they got - bought more weapons and killed more Jews.

Palestine has already received much, much, much more aid - in inflation adjusted dollars per capita, than Germany ever did - the only missing ingredient is destroying the terrorists and their supporters that run the country and then controlling, with absolute power, what that money is spent on - only then will things change for the better for both Israel and the Palestinians.

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

#955

Post by vacuity »

ignoramous wrote: post #756
jerpint wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found the silence on HN around these events deafening when the Oct 7th attacks first happened (before Israeli retaliation). What is depicted here is tragic. There were many other tragic depictions then too. It seems fair to discuss both tragedies yet here only one instance is used as the “testbed” for HN discussions, from a generally biased source. I’m hoping we will find some nuance in these tough conversations an…

> I found the silence on HN around these events deafening when the Oct 7th attacks first happened (before Israeli retaliation. Tech Twitter is where the debate is at. I've been very surprised by some of the takes, to the say the least: Racist, fascist, supremacist undertones in all their glory, tweeted / retweeted ad nauseum (this one, for example, retweeted by Garry Tan https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/173368764…

Whether by nature or nurture or some combination of the two, many people seem to lack compassion and empathy for those significantly outside of their personal bubble. If it was "their people" going through that suffering, they wouldn't stand for it, but as it is, it's someone else's problem. Living in the US, platitudes like "justice and liberty for all" don't hold up to the cold hard reality that it's that person's side versus everyone else. I wonder if we'll ever reach a critical mass of people that genuinely want everyone to thrive and suppress the bad actors that only think about what benefits them.

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

#956

Post by vacuity »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #933

If we're gonna have a curious conversation I must say that I don't understand the distinction between civlians and non-civilians (combatants?). Isn't the whole point of war to kill the enemy's civilians and destroy their infrastructure, so that their nation can't support a standing army to defend whatever natural resources the attacker wants in the first place? I wonder if there is any example from history, modern an…

There is some point at which a nation's "self-defense" is pertinent, although in reality that self is both composed of many people and nebulous to reason about. If people unjustly attack, it's not like saying "Hey! Stop violating international law!" is going to work. Of course, the supposed good actors should try their best to not cause war (in this case, Israel is not so innocent), but if war arrives unbidden on your doorstep, don't let them destroy your house and kill you.

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

#957

Post by reissbaker »

drc500free wrote: post #352
reissbaker wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP but Netanyahu is living on borrowed time — he won't be replaced in the middle of the war, but even Likud is having private talks about who replaces him once it's over. I would give very high probability that he is replaced well before his term is up.

Unfortunately, given Bibi's single-minded focus on staying in power, "he won't be replaced in the middle of the war" guarantees that he will try to make this a forever war.

IMO he doesn't have the votes in the Knesset to do it, and the US is already applying significant pressure to wrap it up soon. Not to mention the Israeli economy can't take the workforce drain to sustain the war at this level for much longer. He doesn't have forever, whether he likes it or not.

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

#958

Post by vacuity »

locallost wrote: post #588
blaufast wrote: post #437

I suspect a very large number of people are too smart to speak up, but also resentful of the forces that work to prevent actual nuanced dialogue. That's certainly the sentiment in my bubble. As somebody who isn't fond of the idea of an ethnostate and sees atrocities coming from all of the actors here, I don't feel comfortable speaking up due to the lack of nuance in public forums.

I don't know what to tell you except fighting against something that is wrong but widespread and established cannot be comfortable. There's nothing really new here. It was not comfortable to be a e.g. civil rights activist in the US during segregation, or a dissident in the eastern block. The question is, what is right and what is wrong. You either accept wrong out of comfort as many people did in the past or reject…

That's not the point that GP is making. Rather, discussing these kinds of topics tends to produce a lot of low quality and emotionally charged discussion that makes it dubious whether one should've engaged in the first place.

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

#959

Post by wolverine876 »

underdeserver wrote: post #897
wolverine876 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like folks are entrenched one way or the other and information isn't going to sway anyone People like to profess doom and hopelessness but I see productive conversations, in this thread and another recent one. Why, in the face of the evidence, is it important to believe and convince people that it's hopeless? The trend to despair just pisses me off. Nobody ever taught me to embrace despair; I don't know abou…

Except nobody does. How many people got off their asses, came to the region and took a look with their own eyes? How many went to work for the NSA in the Palestinian department to understand what's actually going on? How many have spoken to both sides with open eyes and open minds, gathered all the actual evidence and testimonies, systematically categorized them, confronted liars with their proven lies, and so on, an…

Just look at this page! Lots of people doing those things (except the NSA job, which seems a little over the top).

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

#960

Post by wolverine876 »

underdeserver wrote: post #900
wolverine876 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it was very unclear whether this would lead to a wider, joint attack by other forces as well I agree that it's easy to discuss rationally from the outside. Hamas is not a threat to Israeli existence. Without extensive and far superior outside help, Hamas could not hold a square meter of Israeli (non-Gazan) territory). Do you have insight into why Israelis talk about an "existential" war? I'm not dismissing their fe…

For one, during this war Israel has been fired upon from Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, with Iran pulling many of the strings behind the scenes. The combined strength of these countries is definitely an existential threat. Aside from that, the borders with Gaza and Lebanon are unlivable. More than 100,000 Israelis are displaced from their homes. The international community does not care that Hamas is continuously c…

> Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, with Iran pulling many of the strings behind the scenes. The combined strength of these countries is definitely an existential threat.

The only country listed that is any threat to Israel is Syria, and they haven't been on Israel's level for a long time, just went through a civil war, and can't even deter Israel from bombing Syria at will. Yemen and Iran don't have borders with Israel and have no means of fighting them.

The most serious threat is Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah's territory would be much more difficult to invade, and Hezbollah much more difficult to defeat, than Gaza and Hamas (as shown last time Israel attacked them). I don't know that Hezbollah has the capabilities to attack, take, and hold Israeli territory; I haven't seen anyone claim that.

> The international community does not care that Hamas is ...

I've seen the international community talk about it for decades, including now. I think this claim, made by other partisans too, is just a fabrication of victimhood and discredits Israel. Israel survives due to the support of the leader of the international order and most powerful country.

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