Israeli Connection With Abu Ghuraib

Israeli Connection with Abu Ghuraib Torture?

Many readers have written to suggest that there is an Israeli connection of some sort to the Abu Ghuraib prison scandal, because the techniques used seem so similar to what Palestinians report. One noted that Joe Ryan, the Abu Ghuraib blogger, had some training with Israeli specialists on such matters.

Khalid Amayrah summarizes the case for.

Talab al-Sana’i, an Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, is one of Amayrah’s key sources, and it seems likely to me that he knows whereof he speaks:

‘ But Israeli-Arab Knesset member Talab al-Sanai says Israel is indirectly but heavily involved in “the systematic mistreatment of Iraqi people at the hands of the American occupation troops”. “It is not secret at all, there are many Israeli experts on torture in Iraq who are transferring to the Americans their accumulative experience of thirty seven years of torturing and mistreating Palestinians,” al-Sanai told Aljazeera.net. He said that American officers joined Israeli army units in Jenin several months ago for the purpose of learning Israeli methods and techniques of repressing civilians, which the Americans, he said, later applied in Iraq. ‘

On the other hand, one Muslim-American reader wrote in to suggest that for decades Israel helped spoil America’s image in the Middle East by its determined colonization of Palestinian land since 1967 and by the brutality with which it often treated Palestinians under its Occupation. But now, in view of the events of the past year and especially the Abu Ghuraib photos. it may well be Israel’s association with the United States that hurts Israel’s image in the region.