The Hamas Torture Videos
by Seth Mandel
It’s difficult to
shock an Israeli military interrogator, but Yahya Sinwar did it. A former
investigator with the Shin Bet security service was once asked what stuck in
his memory from decades-ago interrogations of the late Hamas leader, and he
replied that it was Sinwar’s admission that he forced a Palestinian man to bury
his own brother alive. Sinwar had been worried that the man was “collaborating”
with Israel.
“His eyes were
full of happiness when he told us this story,” the Israeli, Michael
Koubi, told the Associated Press.
Sinwar’s nickname
was, after all, the Butcher of Khan Younis. Which meant he was butchering Palestinians.
Koubi’s story
came to mind this week when the IDF released hours of footage of Hamas
officials torturing Palestinian civilians. The footage was recovered in Gaza,
and received much more press this week outside of the United States than here
at home. Journalists and activists have wondered why that is.
Koubi’s
conversation with Sinwar all those years ago provides one answer: We all
already knew this about Hamas. But the American media (and to some extent
Western media more broadly) and the progressive activist class have chosen a
side in the war between Israel and Hamas—and they did so with eyes wide open.
Film of Hamas torturing gay men won’t change the mind of anyone who was camping
out at a tentifada or marching down city streets chanting “From the river to
the sea.”
The press has,
therefore, been hesitant to remind the world that so many among them have
gleefully aligned themselves with the planet’s most evil human beings.
The videos hold
important historical value as proof of what we cannot pretend we didn’t know.
The Daily Mail describes some of their contents. A few examples:
“The harrowing
videos show male prisoners with sacks over their heads, chained to floors and
ceilings in painful positions.”
“Men writhe in
agony as they are beaten with sticks on the soles of their feet.”
“One interrogator
reclines on a chair, with his arms folded behind his head, in front of a
chained-up prisoner hanging from the ceiling by his arms.”
“Another film
features a man, with a red sack over his head, chained up so awkwardly he can
just about place one foot on the floor. One captor later appears to brutally
choke the man.”
One Gazan (it’s
not clear if he’s in any of the videos) told the paper that he was kidnapped
and tortured by Hamas thugs every few years since they found out he was gay.
Next to gay
Palestinians, Hamas’s favorite torture targets appear to be those deemed
suspected “collaborators.” One Israeli intelligence officer spoke of people who
were “electrocuted on electricity pylons or dragged on a chain from a vehicle
until they die.” Some victims had plastic melted onto their body.
It wasn’t only
gays and those with Jewish contacts who were abducted and tormented by Hamas;
so were suspected adulterers. Perhaps one of the American activists in a
Handmaid’s Tale costume could spare a tear for the victims of the actual
dystopian government from hell. But that would be the same torture force for
which many of them and their comrades are also advocating, unfortunately.
That’s the story
here; that’s the why. We’re not hearing much about the videos of
Hamasniks carrying out what one Gaza-born activist described as “a fundamental
component of Hamas’ governance strategy” because it is a
fundamental component of Hamas’s governance strategy. To acknowledge this is to
acknowledge that nobody cares less about Palestinians than legions of so-called
“pro-Palestinian activists” in the West. It is to acknowledge that many
Americans are attracted not to the justness of a cause but to its display of
homicidal indifference to life.
Similarly, these
are not skeletons in Sinwar’s closet. They are the very foundation of his life
and career. They are the reason for his every promotion, for his selection,
ultimately, to be the representation of Hamas to the world as well as to
Palestinians in Gaza. To discuss these videos is to confront the fact that we
in the West have a serious problem on our hands and no strategy to reclaim the
principles of liberal democracy before Generation Sinwar buries those
principles alive.
