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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."

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[-] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 209 points 9 months ago

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

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 111 points 9 months ago

They do, they just don't care.

[-] becausechemistry@lemm.ee 32 points 9 months ago

They do, and that’s the point.

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[-] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 82 points 9 months ago

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

[-] DeathsEmbrace@lemm.ee 10 points 9 months ago

I’ll take history repeat for 1000.

[-] EisFrei@lemmy.world 81 points 9 months ago
[-] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 70 points 9 months ago

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

[-] Krauerking@lemy.lol 14 points 9 months 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?

[-] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 70 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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

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[-] teft@lemmy.world 60 points 9 months ago

The headline says "brands Palestinians". The article doesn't mention branding. They had numbers written on their foreheads. Most prisons identify prisoners by numbers. Probably not a great idea to just write it on their foreheads but if you have limited ways of marking prisoners it makes sense.

Israels soldiers are shit but how about we use accurate language to describe what they are doing. Lying helps no one.

[-] Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world 62 points 9 months ago

I agree with your take. Shitty headline. When I think of “branding” , I think of hot iron burnt into flesh.

[-] ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world 34 points 9 months ago

i would strongly urge you to familiarise yourself with figures of speech lest you're -- you know -- branded as an ignorant person.

[-] teft@lemmy.world 50 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Maybe the website should learn not to use language that is ambiguous in order to push an agenda. Looking at these comments there are already a bunch of people who are assuming brand to mean scarification by burning since they evidently only read the headline.

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[-] Lemminary@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

Yes, but I think it's also intentional to mislead for clicks.

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[-] prole 53 points 9 months ago

For fuck sake, how blatant does it need to get before people recognize this for what it is?

[-] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

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

[-] masquenox@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

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

[-] dalekcaan@lemm.ee 53 points 9 months 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@lemmy.world 25 points 9 months 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

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[-] migo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 8 months ago

This is no longer a boring dystopia

[-] pyre@lemmy.world 37 points 9 months ago

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

—Bibi, apparently

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[-] WoahWoah@lemmy.world 36 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Writing a number on someone with a marker is not branding. This is stupid. The IDF is committing actual atrocities, and this article is about writing a number on people with a marker and referring to them by that number. Relatively humane prison systems refer to people by their inmate number as well.

What is even going on? This is literally a distraction from the actual terrible things regularly occurring. Think about it this way: within the horrifyingly violent context of Palestine right now, here is an entire article that could be headlined: "IDF Uses New Weapon Against Palestinians: A Marker." See how absurd that is when there are much more important events occurring?

Who wrote this? The IDF?

[-] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 31 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

They did not hold a prison number sign. Or a piece of clothing with a number. They were marked with the number on their forehead.

No prison system kidnaps people and throws them in a "jail" without process, writes a number on their forehead, tortures them for months and then releases them because they were innocent.

And I do not mean a combination of those things.

I mean not one of those things is done in a prison.

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[-] Snowclone@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago

Personally I'd be unwilling to write numbers on people and refer to them by that number, I just read a lot of accounts of the holocaust and that's too close for me to be around without feeling sick. Don't know how IDF can stomach this. But, you know, no end to the depth of human depravity and evil. I'm not a great person. Still couldn't do this.

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[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 35 points 8 months 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@lemmy.world 27 points 9 months ago

History repeats itself

[-] theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 9 months ago

Every prisoner should have the right to be branded with their very own personalized NFT.

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[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 26 points 9 months 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@lemmy.world 25 points 8 months 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

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago

You can't make this shit up

[-] BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago

Yellow star was already patented

[-] TheFonz@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I have a theory that people that willingly post links from this site are doing it on purpose to cause more harm to Palestinians. Hear me out.

  • No other news source has confirmed this act.

  • Everyone in the comments are assuming the literal and first dictionary definition of branding by physical mutilation.

  • People that actually read the article are pointing out that the headline is misleading but they are getting drowned out by pedantic discussions of semantics when it's clear the implication is physical mutilation.

  • There is so much heinous actions committed by the IDF but here we are talking about made up news. See where this is going?

There is something fucky going on.

[-] Dasus@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

Everyone in the comments are assuming the literal and first dictionary definition of branding by physical mutilation.

Why do you keep insisting this childish bullshit that no-one has argued for?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brand

a(1)

: a mark made by burning with a hot iron to attest manufacture or quality or to designate ownership

(2)

: a PRINTED mark made for similar purposes

b(1)

: a mark put on criminals

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[-] kittenzrulz123 16 points 8 months ago

As someone living in "Israel" im not shocked, I wouldn't be suprised if they put it on their forearms next time

[-] bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net 16 points 9 months ago

Hmmmmm 🤔

[-] workerONE@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago

"brands" by writing a number on the forehead with a pen

[-] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

The right-wing religious nutters in Israel read plenty of NKVD and SS manuals.

[-] hightrix@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Israel: Yes, again.

[-] Jumpingspiderman@reddthat.com 12 points 9 months ago

It's not a brand. It's marker. like they do to runners in some race. With all the other horrid shit Israel does to folks in Gaza, this is pretty small beer and hardly worth the electrons to post it.

[-] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 10 points 9 months ago

The optics of it still ain't good cuh.

[-] Hamartia@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

If your local police force rounded up all the males in a minority group and wrote the processing numbers on their foreheads do you think it might make the news?

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[-] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago

I think an arm tattoo would be better...

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this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
703 points (100.0% liked)

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