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The scene, captured in a video posted on social media by the unabashedly fascist Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, is atrocious, obscene. We see him as he struts alongside captive flotilla activists who are forced to kneel before him, blindfolded, their hands bound behind them. A woman prisoner is thrown to the ground. Ben Gvir taunts a prisoner.
Can you imagine the outrage if Hamas were to subject Israelis to such abuse? But wait, we all remember the horrific images of Israeli hostages manhandled and jeered at as they were dragged through Gaza City on October 7, 2023.
This is different, the pr flacks will say. No one has been killed. No one has been raped. Just physically abused, humiliated, dehumanized. And it would appear that no one present objected to the inhumane treatment to which the flotilla activists were being subjected.
Let me be clear. What we have seen in this video is a blatant violation not just of international law but of the most basic tenets of civilized human behavior.
The 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War specifically prohibits “any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering . . . of protected persons,” which the flotilla activists clearly are. “This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishment, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not........