The abuse of a Nukhba terrorist (we’re not talking about homosexual intercourse but about inserting an iron rod in order to harm him), who is not a human being but a harmful animal, disgusts you?
I understand that in your eyes the Nukhba terrorists are human beings. What precious moral delicacy. That terrorist burned babies alive (they knew that when they abused him), and you see a human being with rights……

Absolutely disgusting. It is sheer bestiality. It has nothing to do with the rights of the Nukhba terrorists. As far as I’m concerned, what should be done is to shoot them. But as I explained in a parallel thread (which the questioner here referred to), the abuse here was meant to vent a desire for revenge and nothing more. There is no benefit in it, and there is even harm. And whoever does this is a two-legged beast.

And I haven’t even mentioned the possibility of error. They have not gone through trial and proper examination, and it may be that one of them is sitting there by mistake. Meaning you cannot even be sure that your beastliness is being taken out on someone who deserves it.

There is nothing wrong with revenge. On the contrary—let them see and fear. And I judge favorably, and justifiably, those Jews that they knew very well whom they were abusing (and I already read that the abuse came after he taught the other prisoners how he had abused Jews). Abusing them is equivalent to abusing a clod of earth. Why do you care if they vent their rage on a clod of earth? Does your disgust at this justify the unbearable self-righteousness, the disloyalty, and the criminal estrangement of the heads of the army toward its own soldiers? And then you complain about those who do show loyalty and want to save them from the jurists, enemies of the Jews?
Beyond that, doesn’t the eagerness you showed to convict, which caused you to join the creatures from the Military Advocate General’s office in a pretrial judgment before the investigation, bother you?

A. If I assume that revenge is beneficial (so long as there is no harm to the state/the hostages, and there is even an advantage in that it has a deterrent aspect!), why should I care about the guards’ motivation? After all, in the end there is benefit in this act, no?
B. Granted, the law needs to deal with them, but I completely identify with the human feelings they are experiencing. I am sure that if a person were to come and murder a child in a sadistic way, the first thing a normal person who saw it would do is beat him severely. Even if he is no longer a threat?

I had no idea how many confusions and distortions one could pack into two short messages, especially Sigal’s first one. I think that until now I had not seen such a low-grade message on the site. And you definitely already had competition.

Sigal,
1. You are mixing up revenge with “let them see and fear.” Doing something so that they will see and fear is not revenge but an act done out of utilitarian judgment.
2. Factually, you are wrong because there is no benefit here at all. On the contrary, there is mainly harm. There is harm in that Hamas can abuse the hostages more. There is harm in that the world condemns and boycotts us. There is no “let them see and fear” benefit because the act was done secretly and not publicized. There is harm in increasing the terrorists’ hatred. There is harm in violating army orders. There is spiritual harm in beastly behavior.
3. I don’t see why one should judge beasts favorably.
4. You have rumors about what they knew. That’s about like their rumors. That is why there are investigations, and therefore they are also being investigated.
5. They did not vent their rage on clods of earth, but on people (wicked people).
6. Venting rage is not “let them see and fear.” And if they do it despite all the harms, that only means they are venting rage and not acting rationally. That is bestiality.
7. The army’s “estrangement” is your infantile description of what happened. The army is investigating acts that should not be done, and it is not estranging itself from anyone. Are you suggesting that crimes should not be investigated? You are begging the question.
8. I will not address here the idiotic expression “the jurists are enemies of the Jews.”
9. I am not complaining about those who want to save the beasts, but about those who interfere with the army acting as it should. My complaint against them is about the way they did it.
10. I have no eagerness to convict. I did not convict. What I argued is that if the acts were done, then this is bestiality. In order to know whether they were done or not, unlike you, who knows everything without an investigation, I think we need to investigate and check and then decide.
11. And finally, you accuse me of passing judgment before an investigation. A perfect case of disqualifying others by your own flaw.

William,
A. I also identify with the feelings of rage, but someone who is not a beast is supposed to know how to overcome them. I do not identify with acts done out of those feelings. Especially when the beastliness of following one’s feelings led to very problematic acts, if indeed that happened. That is why there needs to be an investigation.
B. The motivations indeed do not matter regarding the usefulness of the act. But I explained above that there is no benefit. This is a beastly discharge of frustration and hatred, not a rational act done for the sake of benefit. But the motivations are certainly important for judging the people involved (the beasts).

With Heaven’s help, 26 Tammuz 5784

Before discussing the “abuse,” one needs to clarify whether there was any at all. See the article by Shimon Cohen, “The Details You Need to Know in the Nukhba Affair” (on the Arutz 7 website).

According to MK Limor Son Har-Melech, the terrorist, who is a senior Hamas figure, tried to smuggle a mobile phone in his body, which caused his injury, and the soldiers guarding him carried out a security inspection and removed the concealed device. That sounds more reasonable than the “abuse” story.

It is possible that the soldiers did not act properly, because the detainee should have been transferred to a qualified physician who presumably would have sent him to a hospital to remove the “foreign object,” and there may be room for disciplinary clarification. But the highly publicized raid by masked investigators looks like “hyper-motivation”…

Regards, Fish”l

Shimshon Zvi Levinger,

There is filmed testimony from a Nukhba terrorist about the abuse, so don’t deny it.

To ChZB — greetings,

The “testimony” of the “Nukhba terrorist” complaining that his handcuffs were too tight and that they didn’t fill his request for chocolate milk and Bamba is just another successful piece of right-wing satire from the workshop of “Sabra — When Reality Pricks.”

Regards, Fish”l

Defense attorney Adv. Adi Kedar relays the version of the detained fighters, according to which the terrorist went berserk during the inspection, tried to bite two soldiers, and tried to snatch a taser gun from one of the soldiers, and therefore they were forced to use reasonable force against him. See the article: “The Lawyers Reveal: This Is the Version of the Arrested Fighters” (on the Arutz 7 website).

Regards, Fish”l

I wrote a detailed reply here to what the Rabbi said, but he deleted it.

With God’s help I would note that in the article quoting MK Limor Son Har-Melech, it says in her name: “That terrorist took the phone and hid it in the place where he claims they injured him, and the device had to be removed.” I understood her to mean that the person conducting the inspection removed the device, but it can also be understood differently—that the terrorist himself, or one of his associates, or someone else removed it.

Be that as it may, all we can do is wait patiently for the investigation to conclude (and the trial as well, if there is one), in which, with God’s help, a fuller picture will emerge.

Regards, Fish”l

You wrote: “In the present case, when people disrupt order and riot because disgusting crimes by soldiers are being investigated, that is not justified.”
But people from the right will come and argue that refusal to serve, road-blocking, violence, and statements by Yair Golan and the like such as:
“Refusal to serve is a legitimate tool. Refusal to serve should be increased even among young people who are candidates for enlistment in the IDF if the government does not align itself with the will of the protest,”
are not legitimate, when they are based on opposition to the government’s legitimate decision to reform the judicial system, with the support of the majority of the people, as is proper and required in a democratic state.
Likewise,
the current protesters claim that the military prosecution initiates outreach to terrorists in Gaza in order to obtain complaints about “abuse by IDF soldiers,” and then the Military Police Investigations Unit breaks into an IDF base wearing masks and arrests combat soldiers (and during wartime, no less!), and that this is extremely serious and justifies severe protests.
How can one really criticize them,
if by their lights the protest is legitimate and even just?
Does it really seem reasonable to the Rabbi that the Military Police Investigations Unit is calling released terrorists to ask whether they have anything to complain about regarding their period of imprisonment?!
Doesn’t that justify a very severe protest against the Military Police Investigations Unit?!
After all, the hypocritical left turned lawbreaking, refusal to serve, and setting the country on fire into a method of operation for a year and a half,
and the statement by the Attorney General worsened the situation (“there is no protest without breaches of public order”) and thereby signaled to the police and the legal system: contain it.
So I really have trouble understanding how this is different if, according to the current protesters, the protest is important and just (and it seems to me that this is indeed the case).
And one final question:
I seem to remember that the Rabbi himself said that all the talk about the end of democracy is very exaggerated, and that it’s nowhere near that,
so how can the Rabbi nevertheless justify burning tires, blocking roads, civil disobedience, shutting down airports, using refusal to serve (!) with the aim of threatening (at least) harm to state security,
encouraging money to be taken out of the country, trespassing onto the prime minister’s private property, and more…
(and MKs from the left also took part in the celebration and supported it).
This is violence for its own sake, not against this or that person, but against the entire state!
And what about the police who came to enforce the law?
We are a state governed by law!!
It’s not as though they obeyed the law and cleared the roads…
So how does one nevertheless discuss this honestly and answer the difficulties, because it seems there are serious arguments on the side that compares this to refusal to serve and road-blocking, and calls the left-wing critics hypocrites because they are appalled by this but a year ago were dismantling the army.
What does the Rabbi think?

I have no way to discuss this objectively. This is my opinion. If others think differently, let them act differently. In my opinion, though, quite a few people do not really weigh whether the situation is critical enough to break the law, and do so only because of propaganda or brainwashing. There is no way to argue about that with someone who insists that his considerations are substantive.

I agree with you that there are people who do this because of propaganda,
but don’t you think that also during the year of the protest against the reform many people took part in refusal to serve and violence because of propaganda and brainwashing that here comes the end of democracy?
And how can selective enforcement really be carried out here?
I agree with you that what happened here this week is extremely serious and should be condemned absolutely, and I think the comparisons to the protest are incorrect, but still, what can one say to someone who claims it is the same thing?
After all, it is hard when on one side breaches of order and harming the army get legitimacy under the guise of democracy, while the other side is labeled fanatical, violent, barbaric, and so on.
What can nevertheless be said about the comparisons? After all, we really have no way of knowing people’s inner intentions…

I replied.

It is very problematic to argue that the difference is not in the nature of the breach of order but in the grounds for it; that opens the door to absolute anarchism. It is clear that the manner in which order is breached has to be agreed upon by everyone, because the grounds never will be.