Israel Matzav

Arab hypocrisy

While most of Lebanon celebrated the release of child murderer Samir al-Kuntar from an Israeli prison last week as part of the 'terrorists for corpses' exchange, Lebanon's real prisoners remain neglected and tortured in Syrian jails. Andrew Cochran has more.

While the conditions for Lebanese prisoners in Syria are a taboo discussion point in Lebanon, what were Kuntar’s conditions in the Israeli prison system? For the record, all Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails committed crimes and essentially invaded sovereign Israeli territory (note: all Lebanese prisoners and their dead compatriots were released in the prisoner exchange). Even with a heinous record, Kuntar was afforded a university education, and eventually achieved a bachelors degree from the Open University of Tel Aviv. According to a McClatchy-run story, “he even took a course on the Holocaust.” Needless to say, it didn’t teach Kuntar much. While in prison Kuntar married an Israeli Arab, and was allowed to have, “conjugal visits from his wife.” [Some of you may recall that convicted Rabin assassin Yigal Amir had to go to court for the same privilege. Kuntar was given it automatically. CiJ] Moreover, “As the wife of a prisoner...[She received] a monthly stipend from the government.”

The conditions of Lebanese prisoners in secret Syrian prisons is a uncomparable to that of Israel’s. Almost all Lebanese prisoners in Syria were illegally taken (as opposed to arrested while invading and/or killing) from Lebanon, and then brought to Syria. Can these new and old inmates get a university education, married, or for that matter have conjugal visits? The answer is quite clear: No. One Lebanese described his conditions inside the infamous Mazzeh prison,

“They pulled out my fingernails and my toenails.
They beat me on my genitals and impaled me with sharp instruments.
They applied electric shocks to my nose, my ears and my throat.
They burned me with cigars and cigarettes.
They sat me on the German chair [a device used for inducing greater amounts of pain].
They hanged me on a wheel.
They hanged me for nine days by a ‘ghost’ winch with the black bag over my head.”

Out of all of this, it is assured that neither Hizballah, nor her sister militias will not be launching a “deep penetration” operation to release Lebanese journalists, political leaders and/or former anti-Syrian fighters from Tadmour Prison. Moreover, as Nasrallah makes more pronouncements to “liberate Shebba Farms”, he will again ignore the Syrian military presence occupying almost 180km of Lebanese territory.

Read the whole thing.

Muslims killing Muslims doesn't interest anyone. Anyone else killing or even imprisoning Muslims is occasion for world outrage.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:32 PM