Update on the jailed teenagers

A while back I asked, “Where are the parents?” Well, they’ve turned up, protesting the treatment their children received in jail.

According to Arutz 7:

The girls were held in jail for several weeks and were released after the courts caved in to public pressure. Soon after, the story of abuse and humiliation the girls experienced while incarcerated came out, including their being denied sleep, and stripped and searched for drugs in the presence of a male officer.

Comments

  1. well, it’s a good thing that the parents respected the teenagers’ deeply held beliefs.

  2. Oy. What did they expect.

  3. Abbi: Were you being sarcastic?

  4. Yes. See my comments on the previous thread. The parents seriously dropped the ball on this. A teen’s welfare comes before anyone’s ideology, either the parents’ or the teens’. And, considering the recent obsession with how “evil” the police are, why would these parents leave their daughters in police custody for more than an hour?

  5. Abbi: And here I thought you had a change of thinking đŸ™‚
    I do not think the parents seriously dropped the ball.
    The State of Israel has.

  6. Well, if you seriously believe that (and I’m sure these parents do as well) , how do you justify leaving these children at the mercy of the “evil” state? To prove that the state is evil to the rest of the public? That’s lovely that the girls were used for a public relations campaign. Are there any plans in the works for how to fit in elementary and gan-aged children? Babies being ripped from their mothers’ arms? I’m sure that would really play well on TV, but you’d have to get the lighting just right to get the tears.
    Platitudes like yours will not help these children (because that’s what they are, in many ways, emotionally) heal from their ordeal. Actively defending their rights not to have to go through it would. It’s much easier to heal from the sting of disrespect then it is from the trauma of extended incarceration. There is absolutely no excuse for what these girls went through.

  7. Abbi–
    The allegations of abuse and humiliation are from an incident that took place on the first day, just hours after the girls were arrested. That incident would have occured whether the girls decided to cooperate with the courts or not. So realistically, the parents had no way to prevent the girls from experiencing that, other than keeping them away from protests, which IMO would be too much (and I doubt that they expected the police to sink so low when allowing the girls to protest).

  8. Right, but I’m sure having to stay in jail for however long they had to after the abuse occurred was less than helpful to these girls, and probably only compounded the trauma they went through.
    So, it’s too much to say no to teen children but not too much to risk them getting arrested and mistreated by police? I’m sorry, but that’s just really skewed thinking.
    I think it’s perfectly acceptable for parents to forbid their children from attending events where there is a strong probability for getting arrested.
    And, as with Jameel, your last statement is mysterious- isn’t it the consensus among the settlers that the state (ie: the police) are evil? So, why would the parents assume that the police would behave any differently if their daughters were arrested?
    I have no problem saying no to a teenage child, just like my parents had no problem saying no to me, while maintaining the closest of relationships. If you think saying no will irreparably damage your relationship with your teen child, then you have much larger problems in your relationship with said child.(I wasn’t talking to you specifically, it was a general “you”.)

  9. Abbi–
    Of course parents have to say “no” sometimes. I assume there are many times that the parents of these girls have forbidden them to do something.
    However, if they always say no, they will have problems. Even if their teens remain close, they are unlikely to be able to function as independent adults when the times comes.
    I wasn’t refering to saying “no” as “too much,” however, I meant the idea that citizens should be afraid to protest because they know the police will be brutal in response. That’s a frightening thought, IMO. The consequences to the kids of giving in to that kind of behavior could be worse than the consequences of continuing to protest.
    Still, I don’t think anyone expected the police to take it this far, “evil” or not. A lot of young people have been arrested in protests. As far as I know, this is the first story involving a public strip search.

  10. It’s all a question of context. Protesting at an outpost will almost certainly get you arrested. Protesting in front of the PM’s house won’t. The former is clearly a dangerous situation which warrants a parent saying no. The parent can sympathize with the teen’s feelings and suggest alternative ways of protesting that are safer and less likely to get them arrested.
    Getting arrested, even in the best of circumstances, is not going to kaytana, even if it’s not brutal. No matter how much any of my children believe in a cause, it’s never worth any of them getting arrested.
    I’m not sure how you jumped to the conclusion that saying no to dangerous situations = saying no all the time. I’m not advocating locking them up in a room till they’re 18. I think l’hefech, being strict about boundaries helps teens learn how to draw the line for themselves.

  11. It should be pointed out that the school these girls go to sent them to the outpost. I live on the Yishuv that hosts the school and one of the girls lives across the street from me. The school in question (Ulpana Levona) bases its whole program around the land and the outpost movement. That the girls were there was no shock to anyone on the yishuv. I have also seen girls from the Uplana walking threw Arab villages and the like. With the OK from their parents.

  12. Ora, the fact that the incidents happened on the first day makes it even more puzzling that the parents didn’t take action to have them released.
    Zach, that is disturbing. Is this the same school that encourages girls to get married before they graduate?

  13. Wow, that leaves me speechless. I hope the school is also shelling out for therapy for these girls.
    This just reinforces my previous comment that this is all about ideology and has very little to do with child/teen welfare.

  14. mominisrael–I don’t think the parents were allowed contact with the girls. If that’s true, they couldnt’ have done much more than anyone else.

  15. mominisrael says

    Ora, the reports about the strip search and sleep deprivation were public before the girls were released. Also, according to the interview mentioned in my previous post, the girls were in phone contact with their parents (presumably that’s how the story came out). And even if the parents didn’t know what was going on, they still should have identified them and had them released. They were only 14 years old!