Israeli soldiers enjoy torturing Palestinians are we each doing enough to tackle this injustice of humanity?

Question

Israeli soldiers enjoy torturing Palestinians, both men and women, and many of them use it to discharge energy, according to a recent study by an Israeli psychologist.

"At one point or another of their service, the majority of the interviewees enjoyed violence," Nufar Yishai-Karin, a clinical psychologist at the Hebrew University, told The Observer on Sunday, October 21.

Interviewing 18 Israeli soldiers and three officers, Yishai-Karin heard confessions of brutal assaults troops routinely commit against Palestinians.

All of the interviewees were among those serving with her at an army base in Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

After finishing service, Yishai-Karin spent seven years investigating soldiers' abuse of Palestinians during the first intifada in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Some of the interviews soldiers revealed how they enjoyed the intoxication of power when they abuse helpless Palestinians.
"It's like a drug," one solider told her.

"If I don't go into Rafah and if there isn't some kind of riot once in some week, I go nuts."

God

For some of the Israeli soldiers, bashing the Palestinians made them feel important.

"You feel that you are the law. You are the law. You are the one who decides," another soldier said.

"As though from the moment you leave the place that is called Eretz Yisrael [Israel] and go through the Erez checkpoint into the Gaza Strip, you are the law. You are God."

With such pleasure in power, soldiers said, nothing was prohibited.
One soldier described an incident when a Palestinian passer-by was shot for no fault of his.

"We were in a weapons carrier when this guy, around 25, passed by in the street and, just like that, for no reason - he didn't throw a stone, did nothing - bang, a bullet in the stomach, he shot him in the stomach and the guy is dying on the pavement and we keep going, apathetic," he recalled.

"No one gave him a second look."

A fourth soldier revealed how he had "no problem" abusing Palestinian women in particular, recalling when he brutally beat one woman for throwing a clog on him.

"I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything there. She can't have children."

Another woman's fault was to spat at him.

"I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn't have what to spit with any more."

Culture

Yishai-Karin found that the soldiers engage in violence against Palestinians from as early as their first weeks of basic training.

Soldiers described how their commanders encouraged brutality against helpless Palestinians and even endorsed it.

They recalled how one of their commanders began the first days of his leadership with beating up a four-year-old Palestinian child.

"So we do a first patrol with him. It's 6am, Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand," one soldier remembers.

"He is building a castle in his yard."

Once spotting his target, the Israeli commander suddenly started running with his soldiers around him.

"He grabbed the boy. I am a degenerate if I am not telling you the truth. He broke his hand here at the wrist, broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left," said the soldier.

Answer 1

Having read the book 'The Lucifer Effect' by Philip Zimbardo I do believe that such evil acts are the consequences of dehumanisation and dehumanisation is certainly not lacking in the Zionist mentality. And yes I do believe that some soldiers in the Israeli army behave in such evil ways. This is also happening in Iraq, Guantanamo, and other such places. Please read that book as it is an eye opener.

Hate speech leads to dehumanisation. Dehumanisation leads to such evils as this. Examples of Zionist hate speech, and I apologise for having to repeat this filth but I post only so you can know the mindset of Zionist Israelis:

"The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more".... Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000

" [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs." Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the Beasts". New Statesman, 25 June 1982.

"The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." " Israeli Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988

“Our race is the master race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as slaves.” ---Menachem Begin -- former Israeli Prime Minister and winner of the so-called Nobel Peace!!! Prize.

Further examples: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/palestinians.html
Does the warped and seriously disturbed mindset of these vile Zionists come from the Talmud, if it refers to gentiles as beasts. Talmud online :
http://www.come-and-hear.com/dilling/dcontents.html
The Truth About the Talmud' by Michael Hoffman:
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/talmudtruth.html

Israel is bring run by Zionist bandits who look like they have hijacked Judaism and are thus giving Torah-abiding Jews a bad name. Anti-Zionist Torah-abiding Jews, include:
http://www.nkusa.org/
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/zanda.cfm
http://www.jews-for-allah.org/
It is thus up to all good Israelis to stand up and speak out against such evils perpetrated against innocent Palestinians. Ilan Pappe is one of them...a good Israeli who has now left Israel because of the ill-treatment of the Palestinians:
http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851684670
Plus it is up to all of us to support all those working for peace and remember:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." --- Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

We the world are not doing enough. Evil is not just evil acts or deeds but indifference to such acts or deeds.

Answer 2

If you really are interested in this topic and not just anti-israel then maybe you should seek other opinions and other reaserch ( im not saying you are anti-israel ).
I am jewish myself so maybe im being a bit biased but the fact of the matter is that in every army you will always find a group of people who have done unjust things.
But like i said you should seek further infordmation into this as its not very fair to judge a whole army made up of 168,000 soldiers on 19 people.
I also think that you shouldnt believe everything you hear.
Im not saying anything you said is wrong im just saying you shouldnt hate a country just over 1 mans reasearch.
I hope you take into consideration what i said : )

Answer 3

You don't cite where your 'proof' comes from for some of the things you mention, so it's hard to take it all seriously.

As someone who has lived in Israel, and met with both soldiers and journalists from many countries, everything I saw confirmed that Israeli soldiers are no better and certainly no worse than any other soldiers anywhere.

Remember they are 18 and 19 year old boys, carrying guns. Every single Israeli, except the ultra religious, have to serve in the army. Israel is tiny and she is surrounded by hostile Arab nations who have already attacked her three times. In addition, Israeli soldiers are the ONLY thing standing between terrorists and the innocent Israeli people.

More Palestinians have been killed by their fellow Muslims than by Israelis: this is fact.

GIGI - oh, grow up! To assert that 'the media is run by the Jews' is utter rubbish. You should be ashamed of repeating that age old lie! The reason why nobody can ever back that statement up is because it's not true! Only fools and racists believe it - I'm guessing you're both.

Answer 4

I've tried talking to the men in my unit but they're very highly motivated. The problem is that nowhere in the Torah is there an explicit prohibition on torturing your enemies, and they tend to exploit that loophole. I've asked my men to engage in group discussions where we try to break down this hostility towards the Palestinians, but they don't really want to take it seriously

Then again, the problem could be that I am not an officer in the Israeli army, nor do I hold any position in the Israeli or for that matter US government that I could use as leverage to influence IDF policy on detainees. So it's tricky.

Answer 5

You see AA , if Abraham was alive today , he would spit onto the faces of his grandchildren , the Israelis, and the Palestinians for what they are doing to each other and to the world, For the Egyptians if they try to help the Palestinians , they are rejected as trying to lead them, and if they do not interfere, they are traitors,, what we should do than to shut up!!!...

Answer 6

I lived and worked in the Middle East for seven years, and this included Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Egypt.

In reality, contrary to the picture you are working very hard to paint here, Israeli soldiers are extremely c areful to behave fairly and partly this is because Israel is a democracy and so the army is under scrutiny both by the public and also the government.

When I was in the Muslim countries, I saw the most terrible atrocities going on; but you never get to hear about them for the simple reason that the TV news crews are forbidden to enter and report.

In Israel, the reporters are there all the time and they film in the more dangerous areas.

You have focussed merely on a bad element within this army, and you know, I'm sure, that all armies have them.

I know what I saw in the Arab lands: they were racist towards Jews and Christians in a way I could not believe, and I still have nightmares about it. Why are you not writing about this instead, it's a far bigger problem.

Answer 7

omg for real? the israeli army has the exact same problems as every other army in the world?

i think the fact that only 21 people were interviewed for this article is pretty significant, dont you think? its almost as if they hunted down 21 delinquents and tried to pass them off as if everybody in the israeli army was the same as them!

the american army never had any problems with any of their soldiers - that things where they humiliated those captives never happened. that event where american soldiers gang raped and murdered an iraqi girl never happened either. the palestinians never lynched those two israeli soldiers to death in ramallah, never dropped them into a huge civilian mob who ripped out their internal organs and danced around with their hearts and intestines in their hands. nope, the only army in the world who has their share of bad seeds is the i.d.f.!

Answer 8

you see AA this is bigger than some 21 soldiers its a systematic approach of the Israeli army and police forces towards Palestinians and whenever any body tries to point it out there is always the accusation of being "anti-Semitic".
remember what happened to Carter when he likened Israeli oppression of Palestinians to the apartheid in SA.

Answer 9

Thanx sis! for telling the one thing that was on my mind for a very long time. I hope people think about what you've asked. May god help those poor palestinians who are being tortured the second we speak.

Answer 10

leeincognito is right! Even though Palestinians are Semitic, opposing Israeli violence is anti-semitic!

Good article you posted, though I read it earler today. And to all Americans who turn a blind eye, this and other issues are discussed daily in the Israeli newspaper www.haaretz.com (why is it Israelis can debate the issue but we Americans have to shut up?).