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Bradley Burston/ The pleasure that Hezbollah takes in torture
By Bradley Burston
Tags: torture, Kuntar, Burston 

Torture takes many forms. We take it and we hand it out, we live with it and we live with ourselves knowing that we may be subjecting our loved ones to it, that our loved ones may be engaging in it, that innocent people on every side may be torture's direct victims.

Few innocent people have been tortured like the loved ones of the people murdered by Samir Kuntar, the Palestine Liberation Front monster convicted of a crime so brutal that even the designation terrorist is too good for him.

This week, the loved ones will know that Kuntar will be feted to a hero's welcome staged by Hezbollah, whose claims to being a religious organization, stain the word religious with a level of sadism that is astonishing, reaching new levels with every gloat by the torture master who calls himself a spiritual leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

But that will be only one aspect of the glee with which Hezbollah will likely take explicit pride and claim exultant victory.

Not satisfied with keeping the families of kidnapped IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in the dark for two years as to their fate, a Lebanese report which appears to have been leaked by Hezbollah two days before the prisoner swap, stated that one of the soldiers had survived the kidnapping attack, but that the other was surely dead.

Then, to torture the families further, the report refrained from revealing which of the two had been killed, or whether the other was still alive.

But for sheer gratuitous sadism, the case of Samir Kuntar has few rivals. Consider the survivors of Kuntar's acts of murder.

Consider Smadar Haran, a survivor of the 1979 attack led by Kuntar. Kuntar burst into Haran's apartment building in the dead of night, seizing Smadar Haran's husband Danny and their daughter Einat, 4 years old.

Desperate to save their two-year-old girl Yael, Smadar Haran huddled with her in a crawl space in the attic. "I will never forget the joy and the hatred in the voices [of Kuntar and his men] as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades," she later recalled in the Washington Post.

"I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed," she wrote in 2003. "So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. 'This is just like what happened to my mother,' I thought."

Smadar Haran's personal torture had only begun. She would later learn that Kuntar had dragged her husband Danny and older daughter to the beach nearby, where he shot Danny execution style, making sure that her father's death would be the last sight her little girl would ever see.

Kuntar then took the butt of his assault rifle and brought in down on Einat's head, crushing it against a rock.

Smadar Haran would later recall, "By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her."

Two weeks ago, in an act of heroism that is beyond imagination, Smadar Haran spoke publicly of coming to terms with the impending release of the monster who turned her life into a waking nightmare. "Samir Kuntar isn't, nor has he ever been, my private prisoner," she told a news conference. "His fate must be decided now according to Israel's needs and ethical interests."

There will be those who note that Israelis have been responsible for acts as inhuman as those of Kuntar. They have. But that neither excuses Kuntar nor legitimizes his elevation to the status of hero and martyr to the Palestinian struggle or the Lebanese resistance.

For Israelis, even after all these years, the release of Kuntar is a form of self-inflicted torture. So heinous, so unpardonable were his crimes, that American Jewish author and journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, himself a veteran of the IDF, wrote on The Atlantic Monthly's Website last week, "As unbelievable as this sounds, Israel is actually thinking of swapping Samir Kuntar in a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah. Kuntar is perhaps the most terrible person held in an Israeli prison, a man who crushed the skull of a Jewish child against a rock. Sometimes, these prisoner exchanges don't seem worth it."

What are they for, these prisoner exchanges? Perhaps only for this: that when sending their troops into battle, Israeli commanders can continue to look them in the eye and say with candor and in good faith that if they are taken prisoner, Israel will spare no effort to bring them back.

It may be all we have left to endure this torture. But it may also be the essence of what we are.


Previous blogs:

Free the monster Samir Kuntar
Experiment: People's Peace Plan Number 1
Fear of calling a terrorist a terrorist
Palestinian terrorism as a natural act
How would Jesus vote on Mideast peace?
Perhaps we killed Christ after all
Experiment: Peace dead? Send us your own plan!
Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
Troubled teens
Among 10th graders, 8% of Jews, 18% of Arabs have attempted suicide.
Meeting halfway
PA President Abbas concedes a peace deal will include a compromise on refugees.
  1.   DELETED BY MODERATOR 15:48  |  Natallie Durson 15/07/08
  2.   well said 15:50  |  alex 15/07/08
  3.   Nutsallie, Your words prove that you fit that bill as well 16:04  |  Dan 15/07/08
  4.   Mr. Burston.....their pleasure will be shortlived 16:06  |  Lynn 15/07/08
  5.   How many Pals prisoners exist in jails without legal rights? 16:11  |  Against Torture 15/07/08
  6.   @natalie 16:15  |  pvdh 15/07/08
  7.   Arabs have killed far more Arabs than Israel has. 16:16  |  Avi 15/07/08
  8.   When Jews Are Killed Because They`re Jews 16:26  |  Yosemite 15/07/08
  9.   It is not just Hezbollah that tortures 16:39  |  Chris Linthwaite 15/07/08
  10.   Hizbollah is pure hate 16:47  |  ScotGuy 15/07/08
  11.   Freed TERRORISTS Coming SOON to Your City, Your Shopping Mall 16:47  |  Linda Rivera 15/07/08
  12.   ISLAMICS Make WAR On CIVILIAN Populations.Break International Law 16:54  |  Linda Rivera 15/07/08
  13.   Disgusting bunch 16:59  |  Dhimmi Hendrix 15/07/08
  14.   Moral victory 17:06  |  Niv 15/07/08
  15.   DELETED BY MODERATOR 17:39  |  JACKAL 15/07/08
  16.   Yosemite (8) it is not only about killing Jews Brad is 17:43  |  Jew- and Bookburner 15/07/08
  17.   DELETED BY MODERATOR 17:50  |  Edithann 15/07/08
  18.   Acts of brutality by Israelis...... 17:56  |  Miriam Ashkelon 15/07/08
  19.   #9 Care to share your sources Chris? 18:03  |  Bob 15/07/08
  20.   Arab "Heroes" who murder POWs 18:07  |  Bob 15/07/08
  21.   MORAL RELATIVITY 18:09  |  JOHN ISH ISHMAEL 15/07/08
  22.   Mr. Burston 18:10  |  Helen Jones 15/07/08
  23.   Just another day in islam 18:23  |  Arie 15/07/08
  24.   Another Bald Assertion - Civilians v. Terrorists 18:25  |  Truth B. Told 15/07/08
  25.   some justice 18:25  |  Harry 15/07/08
  26.   DELETED BY MODERATOR 18:26  |  Kris Lazar 15/07/08
  27.   Niv 18:39  |  Margie in Tel Aviv 15/07/08
  28.   Truth: Israel`s Leftist Selfhating Elites enjoy freeing Kuntar 18:52  |  Oiy Va Voiy 15/07/08
  29.   #18 Bob 19:01  |  Chris Linthwaite 15/07/08
  30.   #1. Israel has killed far more civilians than the "terrorists" 19:09  |  Lenny 15/07/08
  31.   too big a victory for Hezbollah 19:11  |  Ernst 15/07/08
  32.   Re Oi va Voi 19:27  |  Ernst 15/07/08
  33.   It was a grave crime to be sure 19:27  |  rm 15/07/08
  34.   #1 - Natallie Durson 19:37  |  MichaelF 15/07/08
  35.   #5 - Against Torture 19:42  |  MichaelF 15/07/08
  36.   Bradley Burston is living in his own world! 19:54  |  Stu 15/07/08
  37.   Kuntar is a creation of Hezbullah 19:55  |  Yosi 15/07/08
  38.   DELETED BY MODERATOR 19:59  |  Imad 15/07/08
  39.   exchange 20:08  |  Art Calick 15/07/08
  40.   Chris - there`s only one side to this story 20:13  |  ERSB 15/07/08
  41.   DELETED BY MODERATOR 20:18  |  Secular 15/07/08
  42.   so true 20:23  |  gezer 15/07/08
  43.   IT IS TRUE 20:23  |  Jean Ziegler 15/07/08
  44.   Put human shield myth to rest 20:30  |  Fed Up 15/07/08
  45.   How many innocents Goldwasser and Regev killed in lebanon? 20:43  |  kaled 15/07/08
  46.   Human Rights Watch 20:47  |  Harold 15/07/08
  47.   ERSB of Tel Aviv 20:53  |  Chris Linthwaite 15/07/08
  48.   @ 36 "Defending".... 20:56  |  Jew- and Bookburner 15/07/08
  49.   C. 21:02  |  C. 15/07/08
  50.   C. 21:03  |  C. 15/07/08
  51.   MichaelF is an Ideologue 21:05  |  C. 15/07/08
  52.   Mr. Ziegler hitting todays jack pot 21:05  |  Jew- and Bookburner 15/07/08
  53.   Jean Ziegler is not a UN Worker 21:06  |  C. 15/07/08
  54.   LETS COMPARE 21:06  |  MO 15/07/08
  55.   Unlike Jihadists,Israel places value on life not martyrdom 21:09  |  PETER SM 15/07/08
  56.   Fed Up In chicago 21:10  |  Arie 15/07/08
  57.   The type of society that upholds a Kuntar 21:25  |  David G 15/07/08
  58.   Psychopath Kuntar 21:26  |  Maureen Connelly 15/07/08
  59.   Kuntar 21:38  |  American jew Lebanes 15/07/08
  60.   censorship! go haaretz 21:39  |  Abc123 15/07/08
  61.   ITS part of the " honor" self delusion."Religion of peace"? even 21:55  |  PETER SM 15/07/08
  62.   Brad has lost the plot 22:04  |  headly 15/07/08
  63.   #14 Niv of Israe