Compare this with the Gentle Treatment of Israeli Prisoners By Hamas
Ex-Prisoners Recall Time In
Israeli Detention
As Israel resumes its genocidal war against the Palestinians
of Gaza it is worth bearing in mind the contrast between Hamas’s treatment of Israeli
captives and Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners. According to groups
like the misnamed Campaign Against
Anti-Semitism, Hamas is both genocidal
and anti-Semitic.
Dr @GhassanAbuSitt1 who returned from Gaza to the UK speaks to MEE describing a “desperate” situation in the besieged strip.
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) November 27, 2023
Abu Sittah teared up when recalling some of the child patients he operated on pic.twitter.com/SYQRKHJTy8
You would therefore expect that when Hamas captured over 200 Israeli
hostages they would feel the full brunt of this anti-Semitism. One would expect
those who were Jewish to testify to being beaten, possibly tortured and
certainly subject to vile anti-Semitic comments.
In addition one might expect them to be deprived of food,
medical treatment and subject to all manner of psychological torments designed
to break them down.
Release of Israeli Hostages
Israel's President Herzog Holds all Palestinians Guilty
Yet the exact opposite was the case. What happened was that Hamas
treated the Israeli hostages very differently to the sadistic brutes that
constitute the Israeli Prison Service. At the very beginning of his reign as Israel’s
neo-Nazi National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir sought to worsen the
conditions of Palestinian prisoners. He stipulated
that they could have a shower for only a maximum of 4 minutes. He ordered that
they were no longer allowed to bake their own pittas.
The Israeli military forced families to evacuate Al Nasr Hospital, leaving behind their premature babies in the intensive care unit. Israel refused to release the babies.
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) November 28, 2023
The decomposed bodies of those babies have been found during this truce.pic.twitter.com/vbCrkUjgFY
As a result of their treatment the Israeli hostages displayed
affection and warmth for their Hamas captors which posed a problem for Israeli propagandists.
How to reconcile their racist portrayal of Hamas as sub-human anti-Semites and
the reality of what happened?
Palestinians not allowed to celebrate their release in E Jerusalem
This was the context for the wheeling out of the Stockholm Syndrome,
so-called because in 1973, after a failed bank robbery, when the robbers took 4
bank employees hostage, the hostages refused to testify against their
kidnappers. Shivani Chauhan wrote
about how
The recent release of Israeli hostages captured by
Hamas, the Palestinian militia in Gaza, has unearthed a new dimension in the
ongoing conflict. This event took a perplexing turn when hostages were seen
warmly waving to the Hamas militants at the time of release, with one even
writing a letter to his captor. Such behaviors have sparked discussions about
the potential role of Stockholm Syndrome, a psychological condition where
victims develop an affinity towards their captors.
There is just one flaw in this argument. No Palestinian detainee
seems to have suffered from this psychological condition. They all speak of
beatings, degradation, torture and food deprivation. They show no affection for
their captors. Why is it that only Israeli hostages feel warmth for their
captors?
Maya Lecker, a political analyst, wrote
in Haaretz complaining about people ‘applauding
Hamas gunmen for giving high-fives to their captives on camera’ and that ‘pro-Palestinian influencers and social media
users’ were finding the nightly hand-overs of hostages ‘heart-warming public displays of humanity and morality by Hamas
militants.’
Another political
analyst, Yaniv Peleg, said
in an article for the right-wing Israel Hayom newspaper that
broadcasting the footage on television is detrimental to Israel. How one might
wonder is showing the release of the hostages live on TV ‘detrimental to Israel’? Peleg even complained of the
professionalism of Hamas footage! Is he admitting that the truth is detrimental
to Israel’s narrative?
These are not human beings - Israeli soldier
Would it
have been better not to release them? In fact this is what large parts of Israel’s
neo-Nazi government, people like Bezalel Smotrich and Ben Gvir would have
preferred. Smotrich is on record as saying
that Israel should “not take the matter
of the captives into significant consideration”.
What the Israeli
state feared was of course the contrast between the propaganda
image of Hamas as ‘human animals’
and the actuality. That is why the Israeli State and the Zionists were angryover footage
depicting Hamas's treatment of released Israeli hostages because it did not
accord with their propaganda.
Freed
Palestinians Say They Were Tortured, Beaten and Starved in Israeli Prisons
Peleg complained
that every detail was captured to portray the humanity of the perpetrators,
Hamas, to the world. When you have spent years portraying Hamas as an evil
group, whose sole intent was the destruction of every Jew, it might come as a
surprise to know that they didn’t hate people simply because they were Jews.
That is why the Israeli state has strained every sinew to prevent
the released hostages talking to the media. If their treatment had lived up to
standard Israeli portrayals of Hamas militants and Netanyahu’s equation of
Hamas as equal to ISIS, then one would have expected released hostages to have been
paraded before the cameras. In fact they have been hidden away.
The absurdity of the comparison with ISIS is also evident.
ISIS beheaded their captives and tortured them. Hamas did no such thing.
Alon Ben David: "Hamas treated the Israeli hostages well"
The military correspondent for Israel’s Channel 13,
Alon Ben David, said
that he had spoken with some of the released captives. All said that the Hamas
fighters “have gathered the members of
each kibbutz together, which gave them a greater sense of comfort.”
Another major blow to “israel’s” propaganda machine
— Husam Kaid (@Husam_Khaled1) October 24, 2023
Sharon Lifshitz, daughter of the released elder who shook the hands of her Hamas captors during the hand off, Yochaved Lifshitz
“My mom is saying that they were very friendly toward them”
ON BBC! IN PLAIN ENGLISH! #Gazapic.twitter.com/khYqvWSclg
They were not
subjected to any violence or insult, and Hamas members tried to provide them
with food, painkillers, and their regular medications as much as possible,
under dangerous and harsh security conditions underground and inside the
tunnels.
They were sitting and talking to each other, he added, doing
their usual activities, and using YouTube. “This
gave them a boost to persevere.” How strange that the CAA’s genocidal anti-Semites
had taken the trouble to gather members of each kibbutz together.
Another speaker on the same show said that they should all
feel “ashamed” of themselves, because
the testimonies given by the recently released Israeli captives are exactly the
same as the testimony given by Lifshitz.
“She was
telling the truth exactly as those [captives] said. I sat with them and heard
the exact same story from them,”
Israeli Channel 13reported,
that the released Israeli hostages said they did not experience mistreatment
and were not subjected to torture. The food was scarce, which was not
surprising since Israel has imposed a total water and food blockade on Gaza.
The brutal treatment of Palestinian prisoners by Israel
Tel Aviv kept
the released Israeli hostages away from the media and allowed only relatives
and friends to meet them. The released hostages were forced
into media silence as Israel tightened its control on interviews.
A report from Israeli news channel Channel 12 noted
that Israeli authorities had arranged a special media process for the hostages’
post-release, in order to ensure they remain in control of the narrative.
Note the contrast in condition - Israeli prisoner on left, Hamas prisoner on right
It said that medical officials will first assess whether the
released hostages were fit enough to be questioned about their ordeal by
Israel’s security police, Shin Bet. The children who were taken hostage will
also undergo questioning by special child investigators.
The Channel 12 report noted that Israeli authorities
had sought to control the narrative following criticism by Israeli commentators
for what they said was a careless handling of Lifshitz’s press conference.
It said media interviews will not be banned for abductees,
but closely supervised.
Despite the anger after
Yochaved Lifshitz's press conference upon her release, this time too there will
be no ban on media interviews of the abductees.
What do the videos of
released Hamas captives tell us | Al Jazeera Newsfeed
Despite pretending to be unconcerned Israeli authorities were
outraged at the fact that Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv had facilitated Yocheved Lifshitz’s
interview. As a result hospital employee Avi Shoshan has been suspended
and summoned to a pre-dismissal hearing. For enabling a hostage to tell the
truth someone is being threatened with dismissal. That’s not something the BBC
or the prostitute press will report but that is what happens when Israel’s
narrative is questioned.
Shoshan was
summoned to a pre-dismissal hearing after the hospital held a press conference
with 85-year-old Lifshitz, an abductee who was released by Hamas last
month.
Yocheved Lifshitz press conference
Time Magazine reported
85-year-old Yocheved Lipschitz as saying that her captors “told us they are people who believe in the Quran and wouldn’t hurt
us.”
Lifshitz said captives were treated
well and received medical care, including medication. The guards kept
conditions clean, she said. Hostages were given one meal a day of cheese,
cucumber and pita, she said, adding that her captors ate the same.
Hamas prisoners - unlike Israel's prisoners there is no sign of beating or torture
A family member of Ruth Munder, an
elderly woman who was released, told the Jerusalem Post
that Munder did not experience any harm during her captivity. In a section ‘How did Hamas Treat the Hostages’ the Jerusalem
Post reported
that
Initially, there weren't many people with them, but at some point, more individuals were added. They had access to a radio and television, where they heard news from Israel. Ruth heard on the radio that her son [Roi Munder] had been killed… The conditions were far from ideal; 80-year-old men and women lied down on plastic benches similar to those in a hospital, without mattresses.
"Fortunately, they did not endure any unpleasant experiences during
their captivity; they were treated in a humane manner," continued the family member.
"Contrary to our fears, they did not encounter
the horrifying stories we had imagined. They described the initial moments of
their kidnapping when the terrorists were agitated and threatened to harm them,
but once they were on motorcycles, they did not harm them."
After 85-year-old captive Yochaved Lifshitz told
the media she was treated "with care"
and was filmed shaking hands in a peace gesture with a Hamas soldier, the
Israeli authorities have been eager to regain the narrative.
Lifshitz told the press how she received daily visits from a
doctor during her captivity, and that they ate the same food as the guards.
Lifshitz’s daughter also said that her mother was cared for by a paramedic
during her captivity.
On October
24, Lifshitz told
the press that she was treated well while in Hamas captivity after she was
driven into the Gaza Strip while being beaten by Hamas terrorists. Her
statements caused an uproar in Israel, with some government and diplomatic
figures accusing the conference organizers of damaging the country's advocacy
efforts by portraying a positive image of Hamas.
In other
words the organisers of the press conference had allowed doubt to be cast upon government
lies about Hamas and that is unforgiveable. Ha’aretz reported how Lifshitz started
the press conference by recounting the details of the October 7
kidnapping: "Masses mobbed our
homes. They beat people, took some hostage." She described it as "very painful.”
It was the statements that followed, however, that drew controversy in
Israel. She said
that the kidnappers brought a doctor that gave them medical treatment, that the
hostages were treated well and the kidnappers were friendly. "We lay on mattresses, they made sure
everything was sanitary," she said. "They made sure we wouldn't get sick, and we had a doctor with us every
two or three days.”
Ha’aretz reported
the story as ‘The problem is you, not
Hamas' : Hostages' families lash out at Israeli government.’
"They
were very friendly to us," Lifshitz said,
"they treated us gently and looked
after us." Clearly this dedemonising of Hamas and the portray of its
members as human beings could not be allowed again.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israel’s released hostages ‘are expected to receive close supervision,
and they will be instructed on what to tell the media and what not."
What this shows is that Israel as a settler-colonial state consciously
seeks to portray those who oppose it as less than human, brutal animal savages
whereas in fact if anyone conforms to this image it is the Zionists themselves.
Tony Greenstein