Abused to the end: Galid Shalit

He was not examined by a doctor before being released or before his last interview by Egyptian TV before crossing into Israel. His treatment clearly violates the Geneva Convention, as contrasted by the treatment of Palestinian prisoners by the Israelis. Shalit is an example of the disease known as Islam.

From Forbes October 26 by Richard Behar

Red Cross Doctors Did Not Examine Gilad Shalit Before Controversial Egyptian TV Interview

Established journalists are loath to criticize their own: with jobs scarce, cowardice proves the better career path, especially when too many reporters sit blindfolded inside their own glass houses. Add in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the media community goes into a collective coma.

Such is the case in the aftermath of last week’s exclusive “interview” that Egyptian state TV conducted with Gilad Shalit (also spelled Schalit) – the Israeli soldier who’d been held hostage by Hamas for five years. You can watch the interview for yourself here; while only 9 minutes long, you may come away feeling like a hostage yourself – to one of the most egregious interviews of our era, conducted just moments after Shalit was released in exchange for more than 1,000 imprisoned Palestinians. (The deal required Shalit to be turned over to Egypt – serving as a “neutral” intermediary – which, after the interview, sent the soldier to Israel.)

What’s extraordinary is that so few voices in the international journalism community – outside of Israel, Gaza or Egypt – have weighed in on it. Last week, I sent an email to the interviewer, Shahira Amin, Egypt’s most famous TV journalist – posted afterwards in a news story.

Three days ago, she responded at great length in an email, most of which she subsequently published in an open letter in the Jerusalem Post. In her email to me, Amin defends her decision to conduct the interview with Shalit – in part because she says the interview was conducted “AFTER [her caps] he had been released by Hamas and had a medical checkup by the Red Cross.”

But here’s the problem: Red Cross spokesman Hicham Hassan wrote me today that “ICRC representatives met Mr. Shalit briefly after his transfer to the Egyptian authorities. However, he was not met by an IRC doctor as this has [sic] not been solicited.”

This is no small detail: The issue of Shalit’s medical condition (physical and mental) lies at the very heart of why the interview should never have taken place. So does the fact that a masked Hamas soldier – from the group’s armed wing – stood with a camera in that interview room. Just how “released” could Shalit have felt at that moment – in an Israel-unfriendly country such as Egypt – to freely consent to an interview? Considering that masked Hamas men were the only people he could see for five years, did he feel he was in any position to say no?

“This was an illusion of choice,” says Dr. Nancy Zarse of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, an expert in hostage negotiations for the FBI, federal prisons, and the Chicago Police. “I watched the video of the interview. There was evidence of increased autonomic [nervous system] arousal, a lot of heavy breathing, and there were times that I thought he looked scared. This wasn’t really that you have the option to say no. I haven’t met or spoken with him, but I would understand that an individual like this still feels captive – that an interview like this would become part and parcel of the captivity.”

There is more, read it all