Shahira Amin lied about abusive Shalit interview
You will all recall that after that
horrible interview with Gilad Shalit in Egypt, interviewer Shahira Amin wrote an
open letter to the Israeli public in which she
claimed the following.
I met him after he had been released and he had had a medical checkup by the Red Cross and he had already communicated with his family to let them know of his release and that he would be home shortly.
Only then did I enter the room. [Emphasis added by CiJ]
I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that
Amin is lying (Hat Tip:
Backspin).
In her email to me, Amin defends her decision to conduct the interview with Shalit – in part because she says the interview was conducted “AFTER [her caps] he had been released by Hamas and had a medical checkup by the Red Cross.”
But here’s the problem: Red Cross spokesman Hicham Hassan wrote me today that “ICRC representatives met Mr. Shalit briefly after his transfer to the Egyptian authorities. However, he was not met by an IRC doctor as this has [sic] not been solicited.”
This is no small detail: The issue of Shalit’s medical condition (physical and mental) lies at the very heart of why the interview should never have taken place. So does the fact that a masked Hamas soldier – from the group’s armed wing – stood with a camera in that interview room. Just how “released” could Shalit have felt at that moment – in an Israel-unfriendly country such as Egypt – to freely consent to an interview? Considering that masked Hamas men were the only people he could see for five years, did he feel he was in any position to say no?
“This was an illusion of choice,” says Dr. Nancy Zarse of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, an expert in hostage negotiations for the FBI, federal prisons, and the Chicago Police. “I watched the video of the interview. There was evidence of increased autonomic [nervous system] arousal, a lot of heavy breathing, and there were times that I thought he looked scared. This wasn’t really that you have the option to say no. I haven’t met or spoken with him, but I would understand that an individual like this still feels captive – that an interview like this would become part and parcel of the captivity.”
Given the circumstances and what he had been through, I would venture to guess that Shalit thought that Hamas could still call off the deal if he didn't do the interview.
Israel ought to - but probably won't out of fear of damaging whatever relations are left with Egypt - take this interview to the UN Security Council. Because Ms. Amin works for Egyptian state television, the interview was a violation of the Geneva Convention provisions that protect prisoners of war and civilian internees from "insults and public curiosity."
Read the whole thing - according to Forbes' counter, far too few people have clicked on the link.
One other point: The Red cross deserves opprobrium and condemnation here. After more than five years in which they did nothing to bring about Shalit's release - they didn't even push Hamas to let them see him - he was not met by an ICRC doctor because 'this was not solicited.' From whom were they waiting for a request? In the event, Shalit fainted on the helicopter from the Kerem Shalom crossing point in the south to the Tel Nof airbase in the center of the country. Had the Red Cross taken the initiative to examine him, perhaps they would have found that he was dehydrated or something similar and ensured that he had something to drink or whatever else he needed to prevent fainting.
Labels: Egyptian television, Gilad Shalit, Shahira Amin, terrorists for Gilad trade
Disingenuous
Egyptian television broadcaster Shahira Amin, who did that
awful interview with Gilad Shalit last week, writes an
open letter to the Israeli public.
I met him after he had been released and he had had a medical checkup by the Red Cross and he had already communicated with his family to let them know of his release and that he would be home shortly.
Only then did I enter the room. I spoke with him for a few moments asking him if he would like to tell the world of his ordeal. Had he refused, I would NOT have pressed him.
If there was any coercion behind the scenes, I am not aware of it. All I know is that an Egyptian security official said that the interview was simply an Egyptian request, not a condition for his release.
He had already been released and the Hamas troops had left the area.
The only remaining one was the Hamas soldier (a member of the Ezzeldine el Qassam Brigade) filming our interview.
I asked everyone including him to leave the room before starting as I said their presence were making us both nervous.
The idea that an Israeli who had been held in captivity by Hamas for more than five years would not feel threatened being in Egypt without an Israeli present and could freely consent to an interview is absurd. What if it was all a bluff? What if they weren't going to release him or they weren't going to release him unless he played along? How was he to know otherwise?
Moreover, note what Amin does not say: She says that she asked the 'Hamas soldier' to leave. She doesn't say that he left. Did he? The picture above indicates otherwise.
I truly regret that my motives were misunderstood. I also am angered by some of the comments in the Israeli press about the questions I asked: I asked how he was, if he had anticipated his release, how he’d received the news of his release after all these years in captivity and what he had missed most while in captivity. I also asked how he had been treated and about his future plans.
Did she really expect him to say that he had been tortured (as we now know he was for the first 6-12 months) with a Hamas 'soldier' standing there?
But I also had to ask why he thought previous mediation efforts had failed and why he thought this one had succeeded.
That is not a propaganda question at all. I just felt that Egyptian authorities had managed to secure a deal and deserved to be acknowledged for their effort while Mubarak had only made promises and never delivered.
That's exactly what propaganda is: Inducing someone to say something that they would not otherwise say.
Finally I had to ask about Palestinians still in Israeli jails.. NOT all of them have Israeli blood on their hands... those who do should remain imprisoned.
Even assuming that there are 'Palestinians' in Israeli jails without blood on their hands (a
doubtful proposition at best, but I don't have the list or the statistics), why not? Don't criminals stay in jail until their sentences are served?
Sorry, but I think she's being disingenuous. Egypt burned a lot of goodwill here with that interview.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Egyptian television, Gilad Shalit, Hamas, Shahira Amin, terrorists for Gilad trade
Who was behind (literally) Gilad Shalit's Egyptian interview?
Melanie Phillips has a couple of bombshell disclosures about that
Egyptian television interview with Gilad Shalit on Tuesday.
Further details have emerged of the interview with Shalit carried out by Egyptian TV interviewer Shahira Amin. Many have commented on how ill at ease Shalit appeared during that interview. Now it turns out that standing behind Shalit’s chair as he answered the questions was a man in fatigues and wearing a black face mask and the green headband of the Qassam brigades – Hamas’s military wing – and with a video camera in his hand.
As for the interview itself, it was clearly designed as a propaganda exercise for the Arab masses. To ask such exploitative questions of someone who had just been released from five years’ captivity, who was clearly in a fragile state (he said so, and he subsequently fainted in the helicopter on the way to the Israeli air force base) and thus to delay his transfer to the Israelis and the reunion with his family, was itself a kind of torture.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Egyptian television, Gilad Shalit, Hamas, Shahira Amin, terrorists for Gilad trade
You will all recall that after that horrible interview with Gilad Shalit in Egypt, interviewer Shahira Amin wrote an open letter to the Israeli public in which she claimed the following. 
