this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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A Boring Dystopia

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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."

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[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 219 points 5 months ago (5 children)

You would think Israel, of all countries, ought to know how blatantly evil this kind of stuff looks.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 116 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They do, they just don't care.

[–] becausechemistry@lemm.ee 32 points 5 months ago

They do, and that’s the point.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 51 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Israel of all countries is the one desperately trying to prove it's more like Nazis (strong white Europeans in their opinion) than like their victims. That's the lesson they got from it all.

They are a broken nation.

And I understand how they become one, what I don't understand is how Armenians haven't (having plenty of their own weaknesses, of course).

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[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 167 points 5 months ago (5 children)

I know a Holocaust survivor who is horrified by everything going on in Israel and Palestine. I also am related to deceased Holocaust survivors and their children, grandchildren, cousins, etc. all seem to think this situation is pretty awesome. They call the Palestinians animals and other terrible things and talk like it's all political and say that people who disagree with them are brainwashed and unintelligent.

I can't be 100% certain, but I think I now understand what it was like to sit at a table with burgeoning Nazis and Nazi-supporters and I'm sad to say that I failed the test. Yes, I argued, I disagreed, and I walked away, but I'm starting to get why everyone didn't just attack the Nazis in Germany. What do you do when you recognize a Nazi but that Nazi helped raise you and didn't seem to be a Nazi until they suddenly doubled down on the wrong choice?

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 27 points 5 months ago

That sounds really tough man I'm sorry. Thank for you at least sharing your perspective. It's an important perspective to keep in mind. This stuff gets oversimplified, and often, ironically, by disregarding the element of human relationships.

[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 26 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 55 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I know, but when you're in the actual situation then you start asking yourself "am I really gonna hit my 80-something year-old great-aunt?" And you start realizing that the cops are definitely gonna get called and then there's gonna be even more Nazis around you and that the new ones have a trigger-happy reputation.

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[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 87 points 5 months ago (2 children)

How disappointed the generation before them would be, having survived that same treatment only to become the monsters that they struggled to escape.

[–] Pilferjinx@lemmy.world 35 points 5 months ago

Israel wasn't founded by holocaust survivors and treated them less than equal.

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[–] EisFrei@lemmy.world 83 points 5 months ago
[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 72 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Numbers are so 1940's, I thought they might have moved to QR codes by now.

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 14 points 5 months ago

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?

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 72 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

This seems vaguely familiar but I can't quite put my forearm on it.

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[–] teft@lemmy.world 62 points 5 months ago (32 children)

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.

[–] Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world 64 points 5 months ago

I agree with your take. Shitty headline. When I think of “branding” , I think of hot iron burnt into flesh.

[–] timewarp@lemmy.world 44 points 5 months ago

What they are doing is genocide and straight from the Nazi playbook

[–] ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world 38 points 5 months ago (2 children)

i would strongly urge you to familiarise yourself with figures of speech lest you're -- you know -- branded as an ignorant person.

[–] teft@lemmy.world 53 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 25 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I think they're almost certainly deliberately using ambiguous language to push an agenda. (Either that or both the author and the editor are incompetent.) And I would add that the language isn't even actually ambiguous. It's simply deceptive. "Brand" in this context would be interpreted literally by a normal reader and claiming it's a metaphor is disingenuous.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hmm

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/nov/04/yellow-star-houses-budapest-hungarian-jews-nazis-holocaust

Branded with a yellow star: the Jewish houses marked for death by the Nazis

Just as an aside, even the Nazis had the decency to not tattoo the numbers on people's foreheads.

Pretending there's no dehumanisation or othering going on here is disingenuous.

https://museeholocauste.ca/en/resources-training/the-process-of-othering/

What is Othering?

Othering is a process whereby a group of people is made to seem fundamentally different, even to the point of making that group seem less than human. This process can trigger instinctive emotional reactions towards members of that group. In many instances, othering has been used to degrade, isolate, and render possible the discrimination, abuse, or persecution of a group.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (12 children)

A house can't literally be branded, so the use of "brand" in that context must be metaphorical. People, however, can and historically often have been branded quite literally.

As for othering: it is irrelevant to the point I was making, so your reference to it here is a good example of how people make a false and inflammatory statement, and then when challenged about it, those people retreat to a much weaker, uncontroversial claim. Meanwhile the public has seen the original, false, and inflammatory statement but not the challenge or the retreat.

No one would care if the headline said "Israelis see Palestinians as fundamentally different from themselves" or even "Israelis sometimes don't treat Palestinian prisoners with respect." However, what the headline does say is that Israelis physically mutilate Palestinian prisoners. Here in the comments you make a pitiful argument that the claim of physical mutilation is in fact just a metaphor, although even then you try to sneak in a comparison between Jews and Nazis. Jews aren't tattooing anything on anyone, but apparently they still have less decency than Nazis according to you.

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[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 15 points 5 months ago

This is still a heinous act of dehumanization,... When I hear of a human being marked as a "brand" I think of a hot iron. I opened the article fearing the worst. Thankfully this is not that.

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[–] dalekcaan@lemm.ee 57 points 5 months ago (10 children)

They couldn't turn the world today into a movie because the writing would be called too lazy and ham-fisted to be realistic.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 25 points 5 months ago

"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

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 55 points 5 months ago (2 children)

For fuck sake, how blatant does it need to get before people recognize this for what it is?

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[–] migo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 40 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is no longer a boring dystopia

[–] Noodle07@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago

Literally 1940

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 39 points 5 months ago (2 children)

... branding detainees with numbers, check... now, what's next on Hitler's to do list?

—Bibi, apparently

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[–] WoahWoah@lemmy.world 36 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

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?

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 31 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (8 children)

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.

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[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 35 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] Jumi@lemmy.world 29 points 5 months ago

History repeats itself

[–] theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Every prisoner should have the right to be branded with their very own personalized NFT.

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[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 27 points 5 months ago

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

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 25 points 5 months ago

My grandfather had a number tattooed on his arm. Never again means never again for everyone.

Shame on Israel. Zionism is an evil racist ideology, distinct from Judaism

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 24 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I wonder why this seems to be the only news org posting this. It seems we know there are camps in the West Bank where people are being detained, and we know the conditions are brutal, but the numbers on the forehead is a very specific extra detail that I can't seem to find any other sources on numbers being written on foreheads. Did MEE just get the exclusive scoop or what?

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[–] TheFonz@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (26 children)

I have a theory that people that willingly post links from this site are doing it on purpose to cause more harm to Palestinians. Hear me out.

  • No other news source has confirmed this act.

  • Everyone in the comments are assuming the literal and first dictionary definition of branding by physical mutilation.

  • People that actually read the article are pointing out that the headline is misleading but they are getting drowned out by pedantic discussions of semantics when it's clear the implication is physical mutilation.

  • There is so much heinous actions committed by the IDF but here we are talking about made up news. See where this is going?

There is something fucky going on.

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[–] BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago

Yellow star was already patented

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago

You can't make this shit up

[–] bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net 17 points 5 months ago

Hmmmmm 🤔

[–] workerONE@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago

"brands" by writing a number on the forehead with a pen

[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 5 months ago

As someone living in "Israel" im not shocked, I wouldn't be suprised if they put it on their forearms next time

[–] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago

The right-wing religious nutters in Israel read plenty of NKVD and SS manuals.

[–] hightrix@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Israel: Yes, again.

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