Fateful Triangle

Peace for Galilee418were “experts in their work,” the prisoners report, and knew how tomake the blows most painful, including blows to the genitals, until theprisoners confessed that they were “terrorists”—though when the RedCross was finally permitted entry to Ansar in August, things improvedsomewhat. Prisoners were placed in “the hole,” a tin box too small topermit them to sit or lie down, with gravel and pieces of iron on thefloor; there they would be kept for hours until they fainted and werecovered with wounds on the soles of their feet. Prisoners were forced tosit with their heads between their legs, beaten if they moved, whileguards shouted at them: “You are a nation of monkeys, you areterrorists, and we will break your heads: You want a state? Build it onthe moon.” The stories closely resemble those told by other releasedprisoners, specifically, the death from beatings and harsh treatment of“at least seven prisoners” who were buried in the Muslim cemetery nearSidon; see above.Yirmiah served in the Allied forces in World War II. He compares theincredible brutality of the IDF with the behavior of Allied troops in Italy,where German POWs were treated honorably and decently and if therewere violations, they were stopped at once, while the IDF officers simplyobserve the atrocities and do not intervene.Reporting his experiences in June—in the early stages of the war—Yirmiah describes the bombed hospitals, the shattered population wanderingin the ruins of Tyre and Sidon and the camps, the terrorism ofPhalange hoodlums brought in by the IDF, the cries of the bereaved, themassive weaponry so out of proportion to any military need. “It seemsthat there are many soldiers in the IDF to whom it matters and who arepained that we have become a nation of vicious thugs, whose secondnature is fire, destruction, death and ruin.” He sees religious soldierscelebrating the Sabbath amidst the horrors: “I am ashamed to be part ofthis nation,” he says, “arrogant, boastful, becoming more cruel andClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky