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.”

  • @[email protected]
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    21520 days ago

    You would think Israel, of all countries, ought to know how blatantly evil this kind of stuff looks.

    • snooggums
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      11620 days ago

      They do, they just don’t care.

    • @rottingleaf
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      5020 days ago

      Israel of all countries is the one desperately trying to prove it’s more like Nazis (strong white Europeans in their opinion) than like their victims. That’s the lesson they got from it all.

      They are a broken nation.

      And I understand how they become one, what I don’t understand is how Armenians haven’t (having plenty of their own weaknesses, of course).

      • @pressanykeynow
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        419 days ago

        what I don’t understand is how Armenians haven’t

        Because they don’t have a regime supporting them them in that?

    • M137
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      1119 days ago

      Have you not seen anything they’ve done previous to this? It’s all completely conscious, they absolutely mean to treat Palestinians like the Nazis did Jews etc.

      • @[email protected]
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        119 days ago

        I have, that’s why I said this kind of stuff to instead of this in particular, I was referring to all of it pretty much

  • @[email protected]
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    16120 days ago

    I know a Holocaust survivor who is horrified by everything going on in Israel and Palestine. I also am related to deceased Holocaust survivors and their children, grandchildren, cousins, etc. all seem to think this situation is pretty awesome. They call the Palestinians animals and other terrible things and talk like it’s all political and say that people who disagree with them are brainwashed and unintelligent.

    I can’t be 100% certain, but I think I now understand what it was like to sit at a table with burgeoning Nazis and Nazi-supporters and I’m sad to say that I failed the test. Yes, I argued, I disagreed, and I walked away, but I’m starting to get why everyone didn’t just attack the Nazis in Germany. What do you do when you recognize a Nazi but that Nazi helped raise you and didn’t seem to be a Nazi until they suddenly doubled down on the wrong choice?

    • @[email protected]
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      2719 days ago

      That sounds really tough man I’m sorry. Thank for you at least sharing your perspective. It’s an important perspective to keep in mind. This stuff gets oversimplified, and often, ironically, by disregarding the element of human relationships.

      • @[email protected]
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        5520 days ago

        I know, but when you’re in the actual situation then you start asking yourself “am I really gonna hit my 80-something year-old great-aunt?” And you start realizing that the cops are definitely gonna get called and then there’s gonna be even more Nazis around you and that the new ones have a trigger-happy reputation.

        • @[email protected]
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          920 days ago

          I love my mother dearly and would not hesitate to slap her across the face if she called any human an animal. My grandmother I might not hit but I’d certainly cuss out.

    • @[email protected]
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      719 days ago

      Institutionalized segregation always leads to conflict. Nations onlynrecover once they abandon that segregation. Israel and Palestine need to come together into one nation as unrealistic as that might seem.

      • @[email protected]
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        319 days ago

        Remember when they almost achieved peace nearly 30 years ago and then an ultra-Orthodox Jew murdered the Israeli prime minister? He was probably a member of Hamas.

        \s

    • @[email protected]
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      218 days ago

      Personally, I’d tell them they’re the ones behaving like animals, and cut all future contact.

      Maybe someday they’ll wake up and realize that they’re on the wrong side of history. Or they’ll pass on to the next life and figure it out when they’re not in heaven.

  • @ChicoSuave
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    8520 days ago

    How disappointed the generation before them would be, having survived that same treatment only to become the monsters that they struggled to escape.

  • @LovableSidekick
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    19 days ago

    This seems vaguely familiar but I can’t quite put my forearm on it.

  • @IchNichtenLichten
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    7020 days ago

    Numbers are so 1940’s, I thought they might have moved to QR codes by now.

    • @[email protected]
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      1220 days ago

      Harder to draw quickly, gotta have them pre printed and then there is the ink costs and where on earth could Israel get the money for that?

  • @[email protected]
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    5620 days ago

    They couldn’t turn the world today into a movie because the writing would be called too lazy and ham-fisted to be realistic.

    • @pyre
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      2519 days ago

      “The Nazi analogies were so over the top, like we get it, they’re bad people… It’s insulting to the audience.”

      —average review

      “You’re watching it wrong! Those are protagonists!”

      —US government in the comments

    • @Etterra
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      819 days ago

      I’m telling you, this Earth show jumped the shark last decade.

        • @qarbone
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          19 days ago

          Sure, the Earth channel has other shows but Humanity has become the main pull of the channel such that it’s pretty much the Earth show. I’ve tried watching some of the other stuff Earth puts out but it hasn’t held my attention like Humanity has, even if the last few seasons have been absolute dogwater.

      • @qarbone
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        119 days ago

        Is that an intentional bread pun? I’m not getting the relation.

          • @qarbone
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            18 days ago

            Cheers! Half of the time I understand jokes every time.

            This is what happens the other 50%.

    • @masquenox
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      1419 days ago

      The people who are willing to recognize it for what it is have already done so.

    • JaggedRobotPubes
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      1319 days ago

      You mean admit to it? They can just continue refusing.

  • @pyre
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    3719 days ago

    … branding detainees with numbers, check… now, what’s next on Hitler’s to do list?

    —Bibi, apparently

    • @[email protected]
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      119 days ago

      It’s not a brand. It’s a mark with a marker. And I think even Bibi and his legions of assholes might be sensitive about tattoos and actual brands.

      • @pyre
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        19 days ago

        wow what a distinction.

        first of all Bibi is a Hitler apologist. the only thing he’s sensitive about is the existence of brown people.

        second of all it’s the same exact shit. the point isn’t the method, it’s the dehumanization.

  • @RememberTheApollo_
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    3519 days ago

    They have become that which they hated.

    Treating Gaza like an open air extermination camp and even branding them the way prisoners were tattooed in German camps.

  • @Jumi
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    2720 days ago

    History repeats itself

  • acargitz
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    2619 days ago

    Yea but a number drawn with a sharpie would fade away. Have you thought of some more permanent way of inking those numbers in their skins? Not to mention that the forehead is a bit too much, it might make the guards uncomfortable. Have you considered someplace a bit more discreet, like maybe the wrist? /s

  • qevlarr
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    2518 days ago

    My grandfather had a number tattooed on his arm. Never again means never again for everyone.

    Shame on Israel. Zionism is an evil racist ideology, distinct from Judaism