Even though the Supreme Court of Israel first approved and then outlawed torturing prisoners, especially (perhaps exclusively) political prisoners, apparently the abominable practice continues. Here's a report by MID-EAST REALITIES - Washington - 9/10/00:
TORTURE BY ISRAEL
SECRET U.S. GOVT CABLES ABOUT "SYSTEMATIC ISRAELI TORTURE" WERE PUBLISHED 21 YEARS AGO!
On Sunday, CNN, the world's most Israeli-centered TV network, finally did a story about torture in Israel.
But it wasn't a story about the decades of brutal torture to which quite literally thousands and thousands of Palestinian have been subjected -- with the world (and CNN) always looking the other way. It was a story about one American, detained and relatively mildly tortured. And all this is more of the old ongoing story whereby one American gets mistreated and its headline news, thousands and thousands of people get historically raped and physically tortured far worse, and that story is never quite honestly reported or put in proper perspective.
Plus there's the simple matter that with this torture in Israel story CNN is some 21 years late! It's another case of much too little, much too late, much too misreported.
Secret State Department documents detailing "systematic torture" in Israel were first uncovered and published by now MER Publisher, Mark Bruzonsky, years ago.
Bruzonsky, then Associate Editor of WORLDVIEW Magazine and credentialed to the State Department, obtained the classified documents from serving State Department officials who were aghast at what Israel was doing and wanted to make it known to the world.
The story of how these documents were set it type and scheduled to be the front-page article in THE VILLAGE VOICE newspaper -- the top editor and Bruzonsky working intensively over a long weekend to make this possible -- and then at the last moment the presses were stopped by persons associated with the Israeli/Jewish lobby, and the article spiked...this is a story never yet told publicly.
Bruzonsky was also at the time the Interview Editor for THE MIDDLE EAST Magazine in London. He immediately flew to London and the full text of the classified State Department cables detailing the "systematic use of torture" by the Israelis, carefully documented by U.S. government officials, was published for all the world to read quite a long time ago.
For those interested, it's the April 1979 issue.
As for CNN, now that they've got their toes wet with this major story, why don't they do it right, including exposing why and how the U.S. has been complicitous in all this for decades, knowing in detail what, how, and where, the Israelis do their tortuous deeds.
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Thought for the Day:
"The most amazing thing about the atrocities in this war is that there have been so few of them. I have come up against few instances where the Germans have not treated prisoners according to the rules, and respected the Red Cross."
( - Cf. The Progressive, February 4th 1945. London Express, Allan Wood, War Correspondent ) ========================
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