From: backon@vms.huji.ac.il
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Subject: Re: I'm an Israeli torturer
Date: 13 Aug 92 16:44:16 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

In article <22183@venera.isi.edu>, arens@ISI.EDU (Yigal Arens) writes:
> In article <1992Aug10.183710.444@vms.huji.ac.il> backon@vms.huji.ac.il writes:
>>
>> I'm an Israeli and I guess if I do what the SHIN BET does, I'm also a brutal
>> torturer. After all, the "torture" of the SHIN BET basically involves an
>> occasional slap across the face to a prisoner. And the kids don't get an
>> occasional slap across the face ? Ergo, I must be a torturer.
>
> I don't get it.  Are you claiming that you have first hand knowledge of
> what Shabak torture consists of, and that it "basically involves an
> occasional slap across the face"?

The Hebrew text of the Landau commission spoke of LACHATZ PHISI MATUN
LACHATZ= pressure
PHISI= physical
MATUN= moderate (with a connotation of "diametrically opposed to extreme")

Just for the record, the Hebrew word for torture is INUI


I personally think that putting a potato sack over a prisoner's head (as a form
of sensory deprivation) is idiotic. But I don't work for the SHABAK.

Prisoners do get slapped up a bit but this is fully controlled. Yes, they do
get placed in dank cells in prisons (but so do thousands of American
prisoners).

And yes, they carry out psychological pressure (e.g. faked "screams" in the
background; threats of raping their sister). But there is no physical torture
at all. No kicking in the genitals, no pulling out fingernails, no Chinese
water torture, no beatings. Yes, there are long 10 hour interrogations but most
New York police detectives do this.

Yigal, if they had another $60,000 for three $20,000 evoked potential machines
(made in Israel) all this would be totally unnecessary. See the CIA-sponsored
article by E. Donchin (an Israeli) in PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY 1991;28:531-547
("The truth will out: Interrogative polygraphy ("lie detection") with event-
related brain potentials"). 'This research reported here was supported in part
by contract number 87F350800 with the Central Intelligence Agency'.


Yigal, all you have to do is ask your father (former defense minister Moshe
Arens) but what else do you want to know ? The phone numbers ? Which one ?
:-)  The office in an old, residential section of Jerusalem near the religious
school or the office in that area of town you so decried in a recent reply to a
posting in soc.culture.jewish ?


>
> If so, one can only wonder why the Landau commission even saw fit to
> deal with this, let alone classify the list of permitted torture
> techniques.  Obviously *they* were informed about something more
> sinister taking place.
>

To engender the "feeling" in prisoners that something very sinister *is* taking
place.  The tricks the human mind can play ! Makes it all very melodramatic.
Yigal, take a hint. Go to a medical library,  find a CD-ROM version of the
MEDLINE database, and type in the word "hysteria". You'd be surprised at what
you'd find. That would explain why the Landau Commission has kept the appendix
classified. While you're at it, you might as well type in "paranoia" :-)



> If, on the other hand, you simply are acting on an urge to confess to
> criminally mistreating your children, then I recommend you contact your
> local social services or police.
>
Yigal, it *was* tongue-in-cheek  :-)

Josh
backon@VMS.HUJI.AC.IL
 --
> Yigal Arens   "He seems like an average type of man.  He's not, like, smart.
> USC/ISI        I'm not trying to bag on him or anything, but he has the same
> arens@isi.edu  mentality I have -- and I'm in the eighth grade."     Vanessa
>                Martinez, after VP Quayle's visit to her school-LA Times 5/21
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast