"Let them starve to death"

[Classical_Liberal]

Other major goals of the hunger strike are to end arbitrary and indiscriminate beatings and the firing of teargas into cells and to gain access to proper medical care including necessary surgical operations and equipment for measuring blood sugar levels and blood pressure. In discounting the petitions of the prisoners and arguing that giving in to their demands, which include contact with spouses and children, beds to sleep on, and even toothpaste, would make it easier for them to organise terror attacks, Minister Hanegbi and other official persons and bodies are appealing to the catchword of security in an attempt to shirk their responsibilities and obligations under international human-rights law.


Our Invitation for Cooperation with the International Community:

Israel's political establishment ignores the humanitarian and human-rights dimensions involved by dismissing the hunger strike as a security matter and the prisoners themselves as security threats. Minister Hanegbi made this attitude more than clear by noting that he would rather have the Palestinian prisoners "starve to death" than to give in to their demands. Even more worrying is the fact that prison officials have taken concrete steps to oblige the Public Security Minister by confiscating the salt that prisoners had stowed away to prevent themselves from becoming dehydrated during the strike. Other "strike breaking" measures under way are restrictions on the sales of sweets and cigarettes and efforts to whet the prisoners' appetites by grilling meat and baking bread outside their cells.

For the time being, Minister Hanegbi's comment is the last in a series of remarks by Israeli intellectuals and government officials that point towards the idea that the very existence of the Palestinian people poses a security threat to Israel. In May 2004, the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) published "Let Them Suffocate", a report on excessive police violence during house demolitions in the Galilee (Israel). The title of the publication quotes the words of a policeman, referring to Arab children in a kindergarten where tear gas had filtered in. The HRA is deeply concerned about the fact that hate speech by state officials, which constitutes a death wish to a person or members of a group, is not challenged by the Israeli general public but rather acknowledged with approving silence.

The state of Israel is in severe neglect of its duties as a declared democracy, and the treatment of Palestinian prisoners is an appalling manifestation of this negligence. Specifically, the resolution of Minister Hanegbi, to let the prisoners starve to death rather than comply with their demands for more humanitarian treatment, clashes with his mandate as Minister of Public Security to protect the rights to life, dignity, and security of person of all those under his charge. The Arab Association for Human Rights expresses its solidarity with the Palestinian political prisoners - both from inside the Green Line and from the Occupied Territories - and supports the humanitarian demands put forward by the detainees. We further call upon the members of the international community to take these grave human-rights violations into account in their diplomatic relations with Israel..........

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3028.shtml

[number6]

1. kick

..

[TrustingDog]

2. ? here, you think Isreal is more Democratic than the US?

Especially now that the US has decided to home invade Iraq with obvious IDF tactics and the spineless news media backing them up.

[Comadreja]

3. Al Sadr Next?

I expect to see an Israeli-style (women, children killed..regrettable but successful) assassination attempt on Al Sadr=missile fired from a remote helicopter. However, that may take more spies on the ground than the uS has at the time.



"Hitler's legal power was based upon the 'Enabling Act', which was passed quite legally by the Reichstag and which allowed the Fuehrer and his representatives, in plain language, to be what they wanted, or in legal language, to issue regulations having the force of law. Exactly the same type of act was passed by the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) immediately after the 1067 conquest granting the Israeli governor and his representatives the power of Hitler, which they use in Hitlerian manner." Dr. Israel Shahak, Chairperson of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, and a survivor of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Commenting on the Israeli military's Emergency Regulations following the 1967 War. Palestine, vol. 12, December 1983.

[XanaX]

4. Impeccable Logic

Your Shahak quote is a HOOT!

I've got one for you:

I am a vegetarian.
Hitler was a vegetarian.
Therefore, I am Hitler.

[legin]

6. a slightly off topic obersevation

"... may take more spies on the ground ..."

I'm guessing the've got spotters in Faluja to identify targets.

Of course they could be just bombing buildings at random, that's not impossible too.

[bemildred]

7. I tend to assume, since it has not been tried yet,

that there is a reason it has not been tried yet.

It would seem to have been better done sooner, while his
following was smaller, than now. Hence, while I understand
your thinking, I am not sure they will do a Hekmatyar on
him.

I don't generally get the idea that they know WTF he is most
of the time.

[bemildred]

5. Mr. Hanegbi seems to have some private troubles now.

Supreme Court President Aharon
Barak, hinting at the Hanegbi political
appointments affair, said Thursday that
all public officials must know that they
are not above the law.

"The police force is not a political
body; it is not the government's police,
it's the police of the state," Barak said at
a swearing-in ceremony for judges at
the president's official residence in
Jerusalem.

A special team has been appointed to
investigate whether political
appointments made by Minister Tzachi
Hanegbi during his tenure as
environment minister were illegal.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/472725.html

Edit: spelling Mr. Hanegbi's name right.