Tortured for helping Israel

From The Associated Press:

A Palestinian man sued Palestinian authorities on Thursday, saying he was tortured after he helped Israel prevent terrorist attacks on its citizens by Palestinian militants.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan says Ali Mahmoud Ali Shafi was kidnapped on September 22, 2001, in Palestinian Authority-controlled territory and tortured for six months.

Shafi lived in the West Bank town of Qalqilya from 1948, when the state of Israel was created, until 1994, when he moved to Haifa, the lawsuit says. Before moving to Israel, he helped the Israeli security services prevent terrorist attacks on its citizens, it says.

In September 2001, he returned to Qalqilya so his daughter could visit her grandmother, and members of the Palestinian security service entered their house and asked him to accompany them to their headquarters for 10 minutes, the lawsuit says.

When he arrived at the headquarters, he was stripped, handcuffed and beaten, and hot salt water was poured onto his wounds, the lawsuit says. He escaped when Israel Defense Forces soldiers passed through town, scaring his guards, it says.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages on Shafi’s behalf, saying it would be impossible for him to get justice in areas controlled by the defendants, which include the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

This entry was posted in Arab-Israeli Conflict, Cognitive Egocentrism, Honor-Shame Culture and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Tortured for helping Israel

  1. Robert Schwartz says:

    Mr. Shafi should count himself lucky. Oridinarily Palestinians suspected of collaboration are killed without trial or any legal process.

  2. RL says:

    true. of course he lives in haifa and is taking it to an american court. alas, what his case and your remark indicate is that in the PA, the people who can’t fight back are targeted (e.g., people against suicide terrorism) and the people who can (i.e., the violent radicals who can fight back) are left alone.

    the parallel here is something that is characteristic of honor-killings in the arab world: you kill the daughter/sister, wait for the autopsy report, and if she’s not a virgin, kill the boyfriend. why? because if you attack the boyfriend without cause, his family/clan will retaliate. if you kill the girl, the only protectors she has is her own family, and that’s you. so kill her even before you find out if you’re justified.

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