The Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic who recently compared former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler has a disturbing past as a prison guard for the Israel Defense Forces at a facility that is known for torturing prisoners and sexually abusing them.
Jeffrey Goldberg penned the piece entitled “Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had'” published earlier this week. It was filled with claims such as: “Trump has frequently voiced his disdain for those who serve in the military and for their devotion to duty, honor, and sacrifice.”
Even more outrageously, Goldberg went on to claim that Trump grew "more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.”
Trump spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer has categorically denied this, writing in an email that Trump “never said this.”
While this attack came directly from Goldberg, there has been a pattern of anti-Trump articles under his leadership, including recent examples such as “Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini” and “Hypocrisy, Spinelessness, and the Triumph of Donald Trump.”
It’s all part of a smear campaign from an editor who doesn’t exactly have a spotless past.
Goldberg, who is Jewish and was raised by “very left-wing parents,” is a dual American-Israeli citizen who left college to move to Israel and serve for the IDF during the First Intifada.
The facility where he worked, Ketziot prison camp, was a holding place where Palestinians who were arrested for participating in the uprising were held. The prison camp was condemned by human rights groups during the time Goldberg served there for violating the Geneva Convention.
Goldberg later recounted in his book that he observed one of his fellow IDF prison guards beating up a Palestinian prisoner after he talked back to him. According to Goldberg, he did try to stop the guard from abusing the man but then later helped him cover it up, writing: “’He fell,’ I lied.”
After returning to the U.S., he became one of the most well-known reporters on the Middle East, working for outlets such as the Washington Post, Slate, New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker before ending up at The Atlantic. He has interviewed everyone from Benjamin Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah to Fidel Castro and Hillary Clinton.
Ketziot prison known for abusing detainees
However, his past has always haunted him. Earlier this year, Goldberg had to withdraw from a speaking event at the University of Kentucky after students raised concerns about his upsetting IDF prison guard past and Zionist views.
While not all prison guards engage in unacceptable behavior, the prison where he worked, Ketziot, is well known for abusing detainees. One report quoted a detainee as saying: “The wardens would threaten to kill the prisoners as they entered the cells … Wardens would conduct searches while the prisoners were naked, place naked prisoners against each other, and place the aluminum device used in the searches in their buttocks. In another instance, the wardens passed a card in a prisoner’s buttocks. All of this took place in sight of other prisoners and wardens, while the wardens took pleasure in beating the prisoner’s genitals.”
It's absolutely horrific and dehumanizing behavior, and while we have no reason to believe that Goldberg ever took part in something like this, it does demonstrate the culture of the forces he worked with and is yet another example of the media hypocrisy we often see when it comes to Trump and other conservative politicians.
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