January 16, 2005

ABU MAZEN'S JUSTICE: NO TORTURE INVOLVED

        Newly elected leader Abu Mazen's Fatah killers won't be hearing howls of outrage and condemnation from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,the UN, or the Editorial boards of the NYTimes and Washington Post. As designated victims of the cruel Israelis, they can't possibly be perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Only countries like Israel and the United States can be reproached for using torture. Wrapping a suspected terrorist in the Israeli flag is just too horrible a humiliation to inflict, and elicits handwringing outrage from the usual self indulgent moralists, like Andrew Sullivan. Meanwhile as the Palestinians go about the business of murdering suspected collaborators with Israel, Fatah assures one and all that these public executions involve no torture. How considerate, how humane! After pumping 25 bullets into suspect Ali Mansour's head, a Fatah spokesman said Mansour had confessed to all the accusations against him. He hastened to add, "We didn't use any form of physical pressure...The confession was videotaped and the fact that there weren't any signs of abuse on his body shows that he hadn't been tortured." At the same time, its unlikely this story will ever make it to the NYTimes front page or the newsdesks of the MSM. There's no easy way to blame it on the United States.
See the full story here.