Submitted by Mike DeCastro(United States), Jun 5, 2007 at 20:49
It was not a theory. It was an account reported to me by a former NSA operative. Confidence is high that what he reported he believed to be true. As I pointed out in another post, Israel did not execute POWs, per se. The IDF simply did not take prisoners at first during the worst parts of the wars. Once POWs were taken, they were well-treated.
The concern on the Israeli side was to quash the intel about not taking prisoners since the Egyptians had already done that, as well as taken many IDF troops captive. Israel did not want to give the Egyptians any more reason to resume slaughtering IDF POWs.
The Egyptian SOP is to torture, beat, and break POWs, regardless of military necessity. What the Egyptians and Syrians did to Israeli POWs makes the worst day at Abu Ghraib look like recess in kindergarten. Why do you suppose the US outsources extrarordinary renditions to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, among other garden spots? I got to know up close what those Arab interrogators are capable of from buddies who went through it and lived to tell the tale. They have a special hard place in their hearts for Israeli pilots. But, that's another story.
My point in relating all this is simple -- don't believe what you see in the press. Things are not as they seem.
Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.