G-d I hope this isn't true

[MGB8]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/in...st/02MIDE.html

The implications are horrendous. If we are allowing this, it has to be ended, immediately.

OTOH, I have a tendancy to reserve a lot of doubt - considering the exagerations that have been used throughout the intafadah, from Jenin on down.

Also, considering Palestinian treatment of suspected "collaborators" and intra-gang violence, there is a lot of reason to doubt that Israeli soldiers are responsible for a lot of this.

But if we are - G-d help us.

[NewsGuy]

Please post some excerpts so that we can discuss the article.

[Teacake]

The pals and such know that hearsay will be made public as if truth without any evidence whatsoever. And there have been mountains of hearsay from pal witnesses for the past 2 years and it has been very effective in pumping up JEw hate. Most people these days drool over headlines like that and don't care about evidence... just the possiblibity is enough for them. ANd when the truth does come out, having already been tainted, doens't even matter when people have their minds made up.

[MichaelC]

Originally posted by MGB8
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/in...st/02MIDE.html

The implications are horrendous. If we are allowing this, it has to be ended, immediately.

OTOH, I have a tendancy to reserve a lot of doubt - considering the exagerations that have been used throughout the intafadah, from Jenin on down.

Also, considering Palestinian treatment of suspected "collaborators" and intra-gang violence, there is a lot of reason to doubt that Israeli soldiers are responsible for a lot of this.

But if we are - G-d help us.

First: Consider the source of the information.

Second: How often does this same source ever tell such heartwrenching stories about the suffering of the Israelis.

I don't want to be seen as nothing more than a kneejerk defender of those I care about, but history has shown me, at least, that they deserve as much benefit of the doubt as any of us can muster until PROVEN guilty. And even were guilt to be proven in this instance, I would , as always, be totally prepared to see it as one of those circumstances of war that do not define an entire nation.

In Viet Nam, the My Lai massacre, as horrendous as it was, did not then and does not now, define the soldiers of America.

[Teacake]

Considering the media has been printing hearsay for 2 years now as if the rumors were true, Israel should absolutley sue the out of every major newspaper for slander and hold them responcible for Israel's current state of woe ... the list is long and the media is 99% responcible for the dishonest smear campaign used against Israel. So dishonest and irresponcible.

[danholo]

teacake,

So you deny that this sort of thing happens?

[Teacake]

I won't speculate on that. WHat I am certain of is that the media prints hearsay as truth and that arabs and pals are notorious liars. After 2 years of never ending lies, like the boy who cried wolf.... I believe NOTHING that comes out of arab or pal accounts.

[L@mplighterM]

Originally posted by danholo
teacake,

So you deny that this sort of thing happens?

Where?

[Mediocrates]

Hebron Residents Describe an Israeli Reign of Beatings
By DEXTER FILKINS

HEBRON, West Bank, Jan. 1 — Almost any young man walking the streets of this gritty Palestinian neighborhood on the eastern rim of the city can tell you the same thing: when the Israeli border police want to give someone a beating, they take him to the city's deserted industrial area after dark.

Imran Abu Hamdiya, a 17-year-old high school senior, was taken away by four police officers Monday night, residents here said in interviews, and he never came back. Mr. Hamdiya's friends, assuming he might need a hand after receiving blows from a nightstick, went to the city's industrial zone to look for him.

They found his body there, splayed in a pool of blood. When they carried their friend to a local hospital, a doctor delivered his appraisal.

"He died from injuries caused by beating the head and face," said Dr. Mazen Jabari, of Mohtaseb Hospital.

The important mysteries surrounding Mr. Hamdiya's death — who killed him and why — may, like so many encounters in the West Bank and Gaza, go forever unanswered. Israeli officials say they have begun an investigation.

But Israeli human rights groups say the government's record in disciplining their own for such abuses is not encouraging, and there is little evidence. Mr. Hamdiya was buried soon after he died, following Muslim custom, and the police say they did not have a chance to examine his body. His family members, who say they do not trust the Israelis, are reluctant to talk to the police or allow them to exhume the body.

"If the complaint is right, then people will get punished," said Pearl Liat, a spokeswoman for the Israeli border police. "But maybe it is not them. Maybe it is not the border police at all. Maybe it is soldiers, maybe it is no one."

For the people of the Jabal Johar neighborhood on the east side of Hebron, Mr. Hamdiya's death seemed a natural end of an Israeli strategy of applying pressure to quell resistance in one of the West Bank's most restive areas. Since November, when 12 Israeli soldiers were killed near here, the campaign has been particularly fierce, locals say. Curfews, interrogations and beatings have become as commonplace as shopping and going to school, they say.

"Some people make trouble, so they punish everybody," said Hafez Alu Snaineh, a gas station attendant in the neighborhood. "They break bones. They give bruises. With Imran, they probably didn't mean to kill him, but they did."

Since the Palestinian uprising began 27 months ago, the area around Hebron has been one of its recurrent flash points. The source of much of the turmoil is a small Israeli settlement in the heart of what is otherwise a Palestinian city of 120,000 people. The area around the settlement has been the scene of periodic violence and, as a result, it has drawn a large contingent of Israeli troops and police officers.

In November and December, two Palestinian-led attacks, which killed 14 Israeli soldiers, the police and security guards, prompted a renewed crackdown by Israeli troops and the police. Since then, the locals say, Hebron has been under nearly constant curfews, searches and beatings to root out enemy fighters.

As described by local Palestinians, the Israeli strategy here seems reminiscent of the one in the first intifada in the late 1980's, when the Israeli leader, Yitzhak Rabin, told his troops to break Palestinian bones.

Consider the gathering at Yasser pharmacy on Tariq Benziyad Street. It was a group of a dozen friends who had come to chat on one of the few days when a curfew did not require them to be indoors.

There was Hasan Ajlouni, who said he was driving his car during the curfew recently when Israeli soldiers fired on him. He lost control and drove into a light post, killing his 7-year-old son, Fadi.

Then there was Rajeh Daoud, a pharmacist, who said he was beaten by the Israeli police when he kept his shop open in defiance of the curfew and slipped medicine to customers through a side door. "People need medicine," Mr. Daoud said. "I was trying to serve the community."

Hebron Residents Describe an Israeli Reign of Beatings
(Page 2 of 2)



Ms. Liat, the border police spokesman, said the Israeli police did not engage in systemic brutality. Often, she said, the claims made by Palestinians fell apart once they were scrutinized. "We take them very seriously, every complaint," she said.

Staff workers at Btselem, an Israeli human rights organization, said the police and soldiers were rarely disciplined for brutality. Of 49 cases reported to Btselem since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000, one has resulted in convictions.

"There is no deterrent, because they rarely make cases against the officers," said Maya Johnston, a data coordinator at the organization.

Dr. Jabari, of Mohtaseb Hospital, said four or five young Palestinian men were brought to the hospital every night, claiming to have been beaten by the Israeli police.

It is impossible to tell how many of the stories heard on the streets of Hebron are true. Hamzeh Rajabi, for instance, said he was picked up by Israeli border police and beaten Monday night, about an hour before Mr. Hamdiya was. His rolled-up sleeve revealed a swollen and darkened left arm. "They said I was a collaborator," Mr. Rajabi said.

In the case of Mr. Hamdiya, two men who say they were with him on Monday night said the police approached them just after evening prayers. The police checked their identification cards and told three of the men to go. Then, the men said, they asked Mr. Hamdiya to stay.

Minutes later, said Raed Rajabi, one of the two men, they saw the officers put Mr. Hamdiya in the back seat of their jeep and drive away.

"When we saw the direction of the jeep, we knew where they were going," Mr. Rajabi said.

Outside the same mosque where Mr. Hamdiya prayed for the last time, a crowd of mourners gathered. Among them was Aleh Omar Abu Turky, whose twin sons attended class with him.

"Imran was honest and beautiful, all the best things," she said. "He didn't throw stones, nothing like that. He was a gentle boy."

Ms. Turky began to walk away, then she paused and turned.

"There was no reason for this," she said, her eyes welling. "Everyday they take men. They hit them and they break their bones. What kind of life is this?"

[Mediocrates]

So there's the article. What to make of it? Well first off let's divorce the article from the source and look at it with the critical eye that any one sided article that's not a balanced indepth news piece would be subjected to. Would it still stand up?

Next we reintroduce the NYT banner on the article and ask the following question. Why does the NYT run nearly on a daily basis a piece about 'the horror that is the daily drudgery that is the Palestinians life". Last week it was on the front page below the fold.

So what we have is a clear editorial direction. I might not call it bias yet but maybe I'm just as blinded by the NYT reputation as the people who want to bleed and weep all over the page.

We have very short attention spans. If there was a daily summary of the shootings, bombings, sniper attacks, a daily piece on the aftermath of a family that has lost their father, daughter, baby boy, a daily piece on the personalities of children that have to ride a bulletproof bus to school, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Maybe parts of that article are true. I don't know. That's what the Orr commission is for, no?

[Miriam]

Originally posted by Mediocrates


Next we reintroduce the NYT banner on the article and ask the following question. Why does the NYT run nearly on a daily basis a piece about 'the horror that is the daily drudgery that is the Palestinians life". Last week it was on the front page below the fold.

Market economy: everyone wants to be part of the global Pity The Palestinians enterprise for the same reason that they publish more photos of Madonna than of your wife

[peacelover]

I have no idea if the article is true or not...

All I will say is that if this sort of thing does occur, then it is the fault of the individual attacker and not Israel the state. All it takes is one idiot border policeman to go a bit crazy, and his faults should not fall upon all of Israel.

The main case Israel has to answer is how well it cracks down on this sort of thing, if and when it occurs. And for the moment, that appears unclear.

[MGB8]

I agree. It is our moral duty to make sure, as best we can, that this kind of thing does not happen.

Interrogation of suspects is one thing. Random beatings is another.

I hope it is just a set of exagerrated allegations and refusal to look at Pal-on-pal violence, which happens a lot. If so, then shame on the NYT for ruinning the story.

If it is true, however....

Originally posted by peacelover
I have no idea if the article is true or not...

All I will say is that if this sort of thing does occur, then it is the fault of the individual attacker and not Israel the state. All it takes is one idiot border policeman to go a bit crazy, and his faults should not fall upon all of Israel.

The main case Israel has to answer is how well it cracks down on this sort of thing, if and when it occurs. And for the moment, that appears unclear.

[Teacake]

The Pals and arabs have a long history of beng liars and currently have the lowest of moral character, so any report they make is suspecious.
ANd in light of what happened a few days ago, how can anything they blame of IDF be believed.
______________
On last Erev Shabbat, December 27, over a hundred Israeli teenagers and
young adults sat down for the Sabbath meal at the Yeshiva (Jewish school)
of Otniel. These kids are not "ultra-orthodox" as erroneously reported in
the LA Times, but "modern-orthodox" kids who study in Yeshiva before and
sometimes during their army service. Four of the students whose turn it
was to be the evening's "waiters" went to serve the main course in the
kitchen adjoining the dining room. Noam Apter was among them. The other
three waiters were: Yehuda Bamberger, 20, Zvi Ziman 18, and Gabriel Hoter, 17.

Suddenly two terrorists dressed in Israeli army uniforms burst into the
kitchen and sprayed the four waiters with fire from their M16's. Hit by
the bullets and mortally wounded, Noam used his last strength to run to the
door connecting between the kitchen and the dining room, and closed it. He
locked it and threw the key into a corner. He then collapsed and died, lying
against the door. The terrorists tried to open the door. Seeing it locked,
they tried to spray fire through a small glass window into the dining room.

[MichaelC]

Originally posted by Teacake
The Pals and arabs have a long history of beng liars and currently have the lowest of moral character, so any report they make is suspecious.
ANd in light of what happened a few days ago, how can anything they blame of IDF be believed.
______________
On last Erev Shabbat, December 27, over a hundred Israeli teenagers and
young adults sat down for the Sabbath meal at the Yeshiva (Jewish school)
of Otniel. These kids are not "ultra-orthodox" as erroneously reported in
the LA Times, but "modern-orthodox" kids who study in Yeshiva before and
sometimes during their army service. Four of the students whose turn it
was to be the evening's "waiters" went to serve the main course in the
kitchen adjoining the dining room. Noam Apter was among them. The other
three waiters were: Yehuda Bamberger, 20, Zvi Ziman 18, and Gabriel Hoter, 17.

Suddenly two terrorists dressed in Israeli army uniforms burst into the
kitchen and sprayed the four waiters with fire from their M16's. Hit by
the bullets and mortally wounded, Noam used his last strength to run to the
door connecting between the kitchen and the dining room, and closed it. He
locked it and threw the key into a corner. He then collapsed and died, lying
against the door. The terrorists tried to open the door. Seeing it locked,
they tried to spray fire through a small glass window into the dining room.

You gotta love that Noam !

I guess the elements of this story did not fit the NY Times concept of how to draw tears from their target audience. When I checked their coverage of the circumstances at Otniel, their rendition equivocated in the first paragraph by relating to incidents in the WB and Gaza from the days prior to this attack for which "revenge" had been promised. As though this were enough to dispense with the innocent lives lost at the Yeshiva.

They did not mention the valor of Noam.