The shocking descriptions of the returnees from the Gaza captivity of what they suffered at the hands of the barbaric Hamas kidnappers are somewhat reminiscent of the eyewitness testimony of Shlomo Filber in Netanyahu's trial. Filber was a trusted confidant of Netanyahu who signed an agreement to become a witness against Netanyahu. The Israeli prosecutor office tried all legal illegal efforts to get Filber to cooperate.
In an appeal which he filed in court against the key people of the prosecution, he describes a series of cruel and brutal treatment which he underwent in the cellars of interrogation to coerce him to agree to bear testimony as State witness against Netanyahu and to incriminate him.
Filber's attorneys write in the petition which he served that "in the framework of the defendant's arrest and interrogation, and especially in the stages preceding his signing his agreement to being a State witness in this case, the prosecutors (including the past legal government advisor, Avichai Mandelblitt; past State attorney Shai Nitzan; the deputy State attorney Liat Ben-Ari and the prosecutor in case 4000, Yehudit Tirosh), they subjected the defendant to the seven levels of Gehennom through severe tortures carried out the night before he signed his agreement of becoming State witness.
"Filber insists that this severe abuse was "predetermined and specifically designed in advance. It was a joint effort by all of the prosecutors in order to break his spirit and trample his self-esteem." He claims that this torture was especially inflicted and succeeded in making him sign agreement while he was reduced to a state of total emotional depletion."
The descriptions in Filber's appeal are intended to shock, even more than the descriptions of the released captives of Hamas. There, we at least know that the hostages were in barbaric and subhuman hands, haters of man, and specifically of Jews, while in this case, we are talking about supposedly normative citizens in a country of law and order who find themselves under cross-examination. Every Israeli citizen expects that if he finds himself under questioning, it will be carried out through decent, normal and humane ways, especially so regarding normal citizens.
Shlomo Filber is not a Mafia figure who is dangerous to society; he is certainly not a terrorist, or a ticking time bomb who must be neutralized as soon as possible. He was in Netanyahu's vicinity, and the prosecution regarded him as a weak link which it considered valid in enabling it to achieve its ultimate goal of toppling Netanyahu and his government. To this end, all means were kosher, including brutal interrogation. Even if only part of this is correct, it should make all citizens shake in their shoes.
If the facts are correct — and allow us not to doubt them — the State of Israel is not a democracy but a dictatorship of the lowest kind, where the means justify the end.
And just to remind you, another normative citizen has now been behind bars for over 100 days, a man who served in the reserves in this past war for 200 days. And only because the Secret Service decided to exploit him and break his spirit in order that he 'deliver' Netanyahu into their hands. Several courts found that he should be released to house arrest. But the Secret Service knows better what needs to be done, and after prodigious efforts, it found some judge who issued an outrageous ruling allowing the Service to send him back to the torture chambers — excuse me — the interrogation basements "until old age". Let them not talk about democracy and law which has ceased making us laugh,
The Flipflops of Yair Lapid
Yair Lapid, who still holds the title of Opposition Chairman, even though, according to surveys, his support is rapidly deteriorating and approaching the minimal party size, reacted to the return of the Gaza citizens to their homes in the northern part of the Strip, that "this fact precedes the return of the Israeli settlers of the Gaza Envelope to their homes is a heartbreaking proof that this government is incapable of running the country."
This is the selfsame Yair Lapid who stood on the podium at the Hostage Square and shouted hoarsely, 'We are the majority,' while demanding an agreement with Hamas at all costs. The screamer from Tel Aviv well knew that 'at all costs' including stopping the war before anything was achieved, and the return of the Gaza citizens to their homes before the return of the Jewish settlers of the Gaza Envelope proves this. But this confused man who has long since not been control of what he says or types on his keyboard, criticizes the Netanyahu government for signing an agreement 'at all costs'. Who, does he think, comprises the majority?
Anyway, it is already superfluous to make sense of his strange reactions, to say the least.
