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.”
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.
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.
Hmm
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/nov/04/yellow-star-houses-budapest-hungarian-jews-nazis-holocaust
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/
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.
You’re equating Israelis to all Jews. Not all Jews are Israeli. Zionist much?
You’re making a pitiful argument yourself. You’re genuinely, literally, explicitly claiming that the headline is “claiming Palestinians are being physically mutilated”. I could give you a long lecture on why that sort of asinine prescriptive interpretation is literally linguistically incorrect, but you’d just ignore it, just like you’re ignoring the genocide Israel is committing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription
But since you bring up the mutilation of Palestinians: https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6477/West-Bank:-Mutilation-of-Palestinian-dead-bodies-by-Israeli-soldiers-requires-international-investigation-and-accountability
But I guess mutilating dead bodies is just fine. Just like it’s fine to massively dehumanise people by drawing a massive number on their forehead. Any pitiful reasoning as to why the number can’t be on someone’s arm, for instance? Nothing to do with constantly reminding the people who are being dehumanised that they’re being dehumanised, surely. It’s not like Israel dehumanises Palestinians on a systematic level, right?
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1145132
Huh, that’s more than a year old.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/17/the-normalisation-of-dehumanisation-in-the-israel-palestine-conflict
“Othering is completely irrelevant here” sure man. I’ve been through military service in my country btw, and we actually got taught what things would be warcrimes.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state
Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant
On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my Office, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin NETANYAHU, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yoav GALLANT, the Minister of Defence of Israel, bear criminal responsibility for the following war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 8 October 2023:
Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Statute;
Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health contrary to article 8(2)(a)(iii), or cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)©(i);
Wilful killing contrary to article 8(2)(a)(i), or Murder as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)©(i);
Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime contrary to articles 8(2)(b)(i), or 8(2)(e)(i);
Extermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7(1)(b) and 7(1)(a), including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity;
Persecution as a crime against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(h);
Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(k).
My Office submits that the war crimes alleged in these applications were committed in the context of an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas (together with other Palestinian Armed Groups) running in parallel. We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy. These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day.
Why don’t you stay on topic and instead retreat to ten different other points no one is discussing or disagreeing with?
Deceptive language is being used by both sides. What is ‘from the river to the sea’ as an example. It doesn’t help the cause if you can’t concede the most simple facts (ie yeah this article is using ambiguous language to create an inflammatory headline). There is plenty of factual horrible stuff being perpetuated by the IDF - we don’t need to make stuff up.
It’s not deceptive in any way. You’re trying to assert an insane prescriptive standard for journalists, something which is completely unrealistic. If we actually tried applying this asinine logic of yours to pretty much any other headline, you’d see how ridiculous it is.
And just like the other poster has repeatedly told you, this does conform to the definition of a brand. You just don’t feel like accepting it has more definitions than a burning iron, because of course you won’t, because then you’d have to accept this insane dehumanisation Israel is doing to Palestinians, something which you’re literally incapable of.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brand
No-one is making shit up, but you sure as shit are being apologetic about what Israel is doing. Almost as if you don’t accept that Israel is committing crimes on humanity?
Who. In. The fuck. Did any apologia here? What a fucking imbecile thing to write to someone that stated clearly and emphatically that the IDF is committing plenty of heinous acts.
Hoooooly shit.
How insecure do you have to be to just pivot to name calling without engaging with what is being said. Are you a child?
“Heinous acts” is a start. Would you say they constitute genocide and/or other crimes against humanity?
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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?