When Israel re-arrested Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank town of Dura, the detainees faced familiar treatment.
They were blindfolded, handcuffed, insulted and kept in inhumane conditions. More unusual was that each man had a number written on his forehead.
Osama Shaheen, who was released in August after 10 months of administrative detention, told Middle East Eye that soldiers brutally stormed his house, smashing his furniture.
“The soldiers turned us from names into numbers, and every detainee had a number that they used to provoke him during his arrest and call him by number instead of name. To them, we are just numbers.”
You would think Israel, of all countries, ought to know how blatantly evil this kind of stuff looks.
They do, they just don’t care.
They do, and that’s the point.
They don’t care. No one is preventing them from becoming Nazis themselves.
How disappointed the generation before them would be, having survived that same treatment only to become the monsters that they struggled to escape.
I’ll take history repeat for 1000.
This seems vaguely familiar but I can’t quite put my forearm on it.
Elizabeth Warren supporters?
Numbers are so 1940’s, I thought they might have moved to QR codes by now.
Harder to draw quickly, gotta have them pre printed and then there is the ink costs and where on earth could Israel get the money for that?
The headline says “brands Palestinians”. The article doesn’t mention branding. They had numbers written on their foreheads. Most prisons identify prisoners by numbers. Probably not a great idea to just write it on their foreheads but if you have limited ways of marking prisoners it makes sense.
Israels soldiers are shit but how about we use accurate language to describe what they are doing. Lying helps no one.
I agree with your take. Shitty headline. When I think of “branding” , I think of hot iron burnt into flesh.
i would strongly urge you to familiarise yourself with figures of speech lest you’re – you know – branded as an ignorant person.
Maybe the website should learn not to use language that is ambiguous in order to push an agenda. Looking at these comments there are already a bunch of people who are assuming brand to mean scarification by burning since they evidently only read the headline.
… there are already a bunch of people who are assuming brand to mean scarification by burning since they evidently only read the headline.
anyone who actually thinks that that headline means literal branding is an illiterate dumbass who needs to read more.
anyone who’s trying to sidestep the dehumanisation of prisoners mentioned in the article by throwing focus solely on the literal meaning of the word brand is an amoral dumbass who needs to understand humanity and history more.
I will admit that my first thought was literal branding. This is the IDF we’re talking about.
So… 99% of the users in these comments?
Yes, but I think it’s also intentional to mislead for clicks.
Brand
1): a mark made by burning with a hot iron to attest manufacture or quality or to designate ownership
(2): a printed mark made for similar purposes :
It mentions a printed mark. Read a dictionary next time you are
boardbored and want to defend the IDF.Edit: God I hate modern autocorrect and IDF bought people being wrong while pedantic
Read a dictionary next time you are board
So ironic.
Yeah that one is a bit funny. Autocorrect can be a bitch. Doesn’t explain you demanding a different word because it has a definition you don’t like and ignoring it.
According to the article this is not standard practice at all. The number practice continued during their arrest while they were beaten and tortured
More unusual was that each man had a number written on his forehead.
“The soldiers turned us from names into numbers, and every detainee had a number that they used to provoke him during his arrest and call him by number instead of name. To them, we are just numbers.”
According to the PCHR, most detainees are beaten during these campaigns, and the Israeli army is trying new steps to intimidate them.
“Usually, a Palestinian is arrested and transferred to a known interrogation centre where he is interrogated. But the Israeli soldiers have replaced that with these humiliating measures, and they say that they have the right to detain any person for six hours without reporting him as a detainee to the Israeli army,” Abu Hawash said.
Here is an article about numbering of prisoners in the California penitentiary system. It’s been a system to identify prisoners for more than 100 years. Numbers are used to dehumanize all prisoners. It isn’t an israeli/palestinian thing.
I only have an issue with the use of “branding” in the headline. If you can’t link to a source that doesn’t use deceptive headlines then don’t post anything. You can’t really convert people in good faith to your cause if you’re lying to them with ambiguous language.
They do not write the numbers on their forehead from the pictures I see in that article
They wore clothing with numbers on it. The prisoners were numbered and only referred to by that number while they were in the system. Just because they had a number written on their forehead instead of on their clothing doesn’t really change the fact that they were numbered.
The only reason your article is getting upvotes is because people assume the palestinians are being branded with numbers (since that’s what the headline says). They aren’t being branded. Numbers written on someone are not the same as numbers branded on someone.
Again I think the israelis are a bunch of cunts and are dehumanizing the palestinians but you shouldn’t lie in a headline. That is unless you’re trying to be deceptive…
This user made a great analogy https://lemmy.world/comment/13210775
But besides that, there is a different level of dehumanization when writing directly on people. Especially when combined with beatings and torture.
The parallels are eerily similar, which was likely what the author was trying to evoke as well.
So once again you just ignore the “branding” issue. I’m blocking you since you obviously have some sort of agenda and don’t engage in good faith. Good day.
Once again you focus on irrelevant minutae to avoid acknowledging that it is a comparable dehumanization tactic.
Wow, what strong resolve you have for your side.
If we’re comparing with established prison practice let’s also mention how prisoners also get human rights, habeas corpus, due process, equal treatment and stuff like that. Israel has none of that for Palestinians.
For fuck sake, how blatant does it need to get before people recognize this for what it is?
The people who are willing to recognize it for what it is have already done so.
You mean admit to it? They can just continue refusing.
They couldn’t turn the world today into a movie because the writing would be called too lazy and ham-fisted to be realistic.
“The Nazi analogies were so over the top, like we get it, they’re bad people… It’s insulting to the audience.”
—average review
“You’re watching it wrong! Those are protagonists!”
—US government in the comments
It would take somebody with a rye wit.
Is that an intentional bread pun? I’m not getting the relation.
Yes, to go with ham-fisted.
Cheers! Half of the time I understand jokes every time.
This is what happens the other 50%.
Mmmmm,… rye wit.
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Found this but I don’t know how credible it is. From around the same time.
Article says numbers written, title says branded.
It’s not good, nothing about this is. However, I’m not seeing actual hot branding to foreheads.
Democracy Now! Is a factually credible left wing news source.
and it’s fucking amazing. A refreshing (but depressing) way to get the news.
It could be just one squad, and not systematic.
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Democracy now is one of the most credible news sources out there. Amy Goodman is meticulous about it.
This is no longer a boring dystopia
… branding detainees with numbers, check… now, what’s next on Hitler’s to do list?
—Bibi, apparently
It’s not a brand. It’s a mark with a marker. And I think even Bibi and his legions of assholes might be sensitive about tattoos and actual brands.
wow what a distinction.
first of all Bibi is a Hitler apologist. the only thing he’s sensitive about is the existence of brown people.
second of all it’s the same exact shit. the point isn’t the method, it’s the dehumanization.
Writing a number on someone with a marker is not branding. This is stupid. The IDF is committing actual atrocities, and this article is about writing a number on people with a marker and referring to them by that number. Relatively humane prison systems refer to people by their inmate number as well.
What is even going on? This is literally a distraction from the actual terrible things regularly occurring. Think about it this way: within the horrifyingly violent context of Palestine right now, here is an entire article that could be headlined: “IDF Uses New Weapon Against Palestinians: A Marker.” See how absurd that is when there are much more important events occurring?
Who wrote this? The IDF?
They did not hold a prison number sign. Or a piece of clothing with a number. They were marked with the number on their forehead.
No prison system kidnaps people and throws them in a “jail” without process, writes a number on their forehead, tortures them for months and then releases them because they were innocent.
And I do not mean a combination of those things.
I mean not one of those things is done in a prison.
Well the police in Chicago have been accused of running dark site interrogation and torture facilities, it’s cost the city millions in human rights abuse.
Right, but I wouldn’t call those places “prisons,” and even if they once were, they ceased being such when they started using them as fucking black sites to torture people
Its the Homan Square Black Site. Used to be a Sears warehouse. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homan_Square_facility
TBF it depends on the prison. In this comment I will be referring to jails and prisons within the U.S., and I am working with the same assumptions you made in your comment.
People are put in jail without trial all the time, when awaiting trial. This is extremely common especially with poorer people who can’t afford bail.
Most prisons and many jails give prisoners a number, and will sometimes even refer to them only by the number. It’s not written on their head, but it is often attached to their uniform, and they can sometimes be punished for taking them off. It’s weird to write it on their head, and really just kinda silly if you ask me. They probably don’t have the resources for name tags because they’ve spent 200% of the budget on more bombs it seems.
Some jails and prisons have conditions that equate to actual torture according to the UN. Extreme heat without AC, cruel punishments, inadequate nutrition and safety. Most notable of these is solitary confinement, which is a very common prison punishment, and which is rightly classified as torture by the United Nations. Some people spend months or even years or decades in solitary confinement.
I think we all agree that the IDF is committing acts of genocide and inexcusable violence against civilians and captured combatants, but it’s also important to not inflate the facts, and to focus our attention on greater issues. Does it really matter so much that the IDF writes a number on their forehead, when they’re also bombing children? Is a marker really a greater evil than a bomb?
People can be held in jail before they are charged but they require a charge and a trial.
Here the IDF is picking up people, throwing them in confinement, beating them up and then throwing them out.
Wiithout a trial ever happening. Nor do they plan it to happen. There is no legal system involved.
Comparisons can be made. Guantanamo bay, Uyghur camps, etc. But that is not what most people call a “jail”. This is kangaroo court stuff.
I agree that the kids getting bombed is bigger news. But seeing “Israel bombed 50 kids today” every single day doesn not hit the same after a while. And it is not really “boring” in the way this is.
I’m not disagreeing that It is a terrible thing. What they’re doing is wrong and they should be punished. However we are not so different, and that is the damn truth of the thing. To that end, my comment was merely pointing out that the previous comments argument was very flawed.
This comment conflates jail and prison as if they’re the same thing, and they are not. It’s an important distinction.
They probably don’t have the resources for name tags…
I know you were making a joke, but it is foolish to believe for one second that this wasn’t done intentionally as a form of dehumanization and public humiliation.
Does it really matter so much that the IDF writes a number on their forehead, when they’re also bombing children? Is a marker really a greater evil than a bomb?
Yes, it really matters. Both things matter. Do we have to make “Israel war crime” tier lists before determining if we should care about something? It’s all awful. And it’s all inter-related anyway. This is the type of dehumanization that allows IDF soldiers to murder so many women and children without remorse.
And I could see someone who does not have an understanding of history, and the historical context around this level of dehumanization, could not fully grasp the symbolism here.
But yes, this is something that we 100% should be talking and worrying about.
Jails and prisons are for the sake of the argument practically the same thing in that both meet all of these criteria. I am not saying that we shouldn’t pay attention to this or catalog it and prosecute the perpetrators, I’m simply saying that the argument of the previous poster was extremely flawed.
Personally I’d be unwilling to write numbers on people and refer to them by that number, I just read a lot of accounts of the holocaust and that’s too close for me to be around without feeling sick. Don’t know how IDF can stomach this. But, you know, no end to the depth of human depravity and evil. I’m not a great person. Still couldn’t do this.
Revelation 13:16-17 King James Version 16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Behold The Beast
They have become that which they hated.
Treating Gaza like an open air extermination camp and even branding them the way prisoners were tattooed in German camps.
History repeats itself
Yea but a number drawn with a sharpie would fade away. Have you thought of some more permanent way of inking those numbers in their skins? Not to mention that the forehead is a bit too much, it might make the guards uncomfortable. Have you considered someplace a bit more discreet, like maybe the wrist? /s
