In early December, images circulated worldwide showing dozens of Palestinian men in the city of Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, who were stripped to their underwear, kneeling or sitting hunched over, then blindfolded and put into the back of Israeli military trucks like cattle. The vast majority of these detainees were civilians with no affiliation to Hamas, Israeli security officials later confirmed, and the men were taken away by the army without notifying their families of the detainees’ whereabouts. Some of them never returned.
+972 Magazine and Local Call spoke with four Palestinian civilians who appeared in these photos, or were arrested near the scene and taken to Israeli military detention centers, where they were held for several days or even weeks before being released back to Gaza. Their testimonies — along with 49 video testimonies published by various Arabic media outlets of Palestinians arrested in similar circumstances in recent weeks in the northern districts of Zeitoun, Jabalia, and Shuja’iya — indicate systematic abuse and torture by Israeli soldiers against all of the detainees, civilians and combatants alike.
According to these testimonies, Israeli soldiers subjected Palestinian detainees to electric shocks, burned their skin with lighters, spat in their mouths, and deprived them of sleep, food, and access to bathrooms until they defecated on themselves. Many were tied to a fence for hours, handcuffed, and blindfolded for most of the day. Some testified to having been beaten all over their bodies and having cigarettes extinguished on their necks or backs. Several people are known to have died as a result of being held in these conditions.
That slander is predicated on the idea that there is a mainstream Left in the US, which is laughable if you’re even the least informed about politics in the remaining 95% (by population) of the World beyond that self-referential bubble called America.
I feel for you guys having been born in a country with a power duopoly and were elections are performative rather than votes having genuine power to set the direction of the nation, but that mindless slogan that not wanting to vote for a guy shipping bombs and artillery rounds to the XXI century Nazis who are murdering in mass the members of the etnic group that live in the ghetto the created and militarilly control next door, is beyond ridiculous.
I can understand the pain of being a tribalist who discovers the Chief of their tribe is a Nazi-lover and of trying to believe America is a Democratic and Free country all the while the only two people you’re allowed to select to lead your nation are Nazi-lovers (in a country of 350 million people, were I’m sure there are millions of perfectly competent president-material citizens who are not Nazi-lovers), but lets not try and solve those mental and emotional inconsistencies in your mind and your hearth (assuming you’re not a Nazi-lover yourself) with ridiculous sloganeering implying that those pointing that your tribe is led by a Nazi-lover hence you’re supporting Nazis if you stand with them, are doing so because they’re Nazi-lovers.