Captive Israeli soldier writes of 'nightmare'

JERUSALEM — An Israeli soldier seized by Palestinian militants more than three years ago described his captivity as an "intolerable and inhumane nightmare" in a handwritten 2006 letter to his parents made public on Wednesday.

In carefully printed script, Sgt. Gilad Schalit reported deteriorating health and deep depression, and makes an anguished appeal to the Israeli government to release him from his "closed and solitary prison."

Schalit, now 23, wrote the 14-line letter three months after gunmen affiliated with the Gaza Strip's Islamic Hamas rulers captured him in a cross-border raid.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jsx1I4iHOAx7-hwB0M4hfnVvskmQD9AJTTP02

..."abuse, including beatings, blindfolding, solitary confinement, forced confessions in a language they do not read or write, food being withheld, yelling and insults, and exposure to loud noises."

My sympathy swells, solider. But both for you and the people you were oppressing.

The quoted text? From the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, published 6 March 2009.

Israel is as fucked as the United States is. Neither of us have a clear path out of this and maybe (and this scares the shit out of me) neither of us really, in a majority sense, want one.

I dunno.

At some hypothetical point in the future when both societies have presumably addressed their shortcomings (or fallen, like Rome) thought will turn to how many resources were wasted with this bullshit and some deeper lesson learned. Oh, it's the dreamer in me talking again...who am I foolin' if not myself? Still...

PB

11,000... v. ONE.

Mind boggling.

Also, your concern for international law seems to wax and wane depending on the nationality of the person in question.

And I don't think PM is showing a lack of concern for any international law. What she's expressed is a more concise version of how I feel about it, and how I feel is that while I feel so deeply for Gilad Shalit, I'm also aware that there are many Palestinians held prisoner who haven't got the massive PR campaign in their court. I'm also aware that the organisation set up to publicise Shalit and work for his release campaigned for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails not to be allowed visitors as some nasty form of 'revenge' for Shalit's captivity. My sympathy for Shalit himself doesn't change due to any of that, but I have zero sympathy for the tactics used by his supporters and do think the large number of Palestinians in Israeli prisoners shouldn't be forgotten...

I do appreciate your correction of the number.

Certainly it is true that Palestinian prisoners do not enjoy a lot of PR; however, it does appear that a sizable number of them are going to find themselves released in part as a result of the PR that Shalit's situation has received.

Which was there's a hell of a lot more Palestinian prisoners, and they don't get the massive PR that Shalit gets....

Shalit has not been allowed any such visit.

You really "don't know" if all 8,000 Palestinians are political prisoners?

I can give you some individual examples if that would be helpful.

Nothing...

And why would you want to give me examples of something that is irrelevent to what I was saying? The point I was making was that there's many Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and they don't have the massive PR campaign that Shalit does.

Consider this one of those.

I am trying to get a handle on whether or not you agree with the previous poster's assertion about the prisoners being political prisoners.

If your answer is that you "don't know" then I can give you additional information that might help you.

If your answer is "I don't feel like answering because I don't care" then that's fine with me.

I can add an equally clear "Don't bother" to the additional info thing. If I want to find out anything, I can go look it up for myself...

Israeli prisons?

How many tens of thousands of Palestinians equals the value of one Jewish Israeli? Or is it hundreds of thousands?

Not all of them are political prisoners in my view, but I suppose that is a matter of opinion.

The factually inaccurate statement was the number you claimed.

I think everyone who is in prison in Israel ought to either be charged and tried or released immediately.

As for Shalit, I agree with the position of Human Rights Watch which has stated that Hamas's prolonged incommunicado detention of Shalit is cruel and inhumane and may amount to torture.

They have also stated that Hamas authorities should immediately allow Shalit to communicate with his family and to receive visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Do you agree with their position on this subject?