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Shawgi Tell
Graduate School of Education
University at Buffalo
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Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:15:48 -0700
From: MID-EAST REALITIES <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Subject: TORTURE in Israel - Systematic and "Legal" - MER FlashBack
M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S - TORTURE IN ISRAEL
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ISRAELI TORTURE IS SYSTEMATIC AND "LEGAL"
[MER - Torture of Palestinians is not only routine and systematic,
in it actually sanctioned by the Israeli legal system that has
been twisted to serve Israeli policies. Going back to the
Shinbet scandal of the early 1980's, even more sadistic forms
of torture have given way to the kinds of 'legalized' torture
methods outlined in this important article from one of the few
independent and courageous media sources in Israel, The
Alternative Information Center (AIC).
Among the reasons the Israelis get away with such systematic
torture of Palestinians is that hardly anyone is willing to
protest. The so-called "Palestinian Authority" practices similar
and even worse torture techniques, as do nearly all of the Arab
governments in the region -- so they are hardly in a position
to protest. And the "liberal" American Jewish community has
been morally bankrupt about such issues for so long now that to
speak up at this point would be to condemn themselves for
permitting, and even encouraging in many cases, such Nazi-like
behavior by the Israelis for decades.
This report was first distributed by MER in January. The
subsquent report about torture in Israel by Steve Kroft on the
popular 60-Minutes CBS program was more whitewash than truthful,
even though it was pointed out that Israel is the only State in
the world that officially sanctions torture (in the form of
'moderate physical pressure) in its legal system].
ISRAELI JUSTICE ON TORTURE
A Shining Light Unto Nations?
"The entire Israeli establishment countenances torture..."
First, his head is covered with a thick rancid sack. It's difficult
to breathe. Handcuffed, he is bound in a twisted position to a
kindergarten chair with hardly any back support and held there for
four days straight. Every time his head falls when sleep overcomes
him, he is slapped on his face to wake up. Maybe on the
fifth day the handcuffs are removed and he is allowed to sleep in
a tiny windowless cell. Music is blaring in the cell around the
clock. It is difficult to sleep with noise and the constant glare
of the shining fluorescent light. On the sixth or seventh day,
his head is covered again with the rancid sack, but this time,
he is chained to a pole in the corridor and made to stand there for
four more days. Or perhaps, he is handcuffed to a hook a meter from
the ground and is forced to squat for three days; three days
continuously that is. Or he is undressed and made to sit in front of
a blasting air-conditioner for hours. There is no sleep. His hands
are swollen from the tight handcuffs; he is vomiting from the
prolonged contorted position he is held in. He smells, unshaven,
he wants to sleep.
This is "moderate physical pressure" under Israeli law and it is
legal. Under international law this is torture and is completely
prohibited at all times. This "moderate physical pressure" is
routinely used by the Israeli secret police ("GSS") to extract
confessions from Palestinian detainees under interrogation. The UN
Convention Against Torture, of which Israel is a signatory, states
that the use of any physical or psychological pressure which causes
pain or humiliation is absolutely prohibited at all times.
What constitutes torture and degrading treatment is subjective --
determined by the victims sensation of the physical and mental
pain caused to him. Sitting in front of cold air may not on its
face compare to torture methods like electric shock, but after
two weeks of little sleep and sitting in contorted positions,
undressed in the middle of the rainy winter, 12 hours of the "air
conditioner" feels like hell. One detainee described it as
"putting the air in a state of war with me".
Despite the prohibitions under international law, the entire
Israeli establishment countenances torture: The Israeli military
courts routinely disregard claims of torture and extend the
interrogations until the Israeli secret police finish the
interrogation; the Ministry of Justice defends the torture
in the Israeli High Court of Justice; the High Court of Justice
itself puts the stamp of approval on the torture often rejecting
petitions that request the court to order the GSS to cease the
torture; the Israeli Knesset Ministerial Committee (composed
of members of the Labor and Zionist Left parties including Yossi
Sarid) consistently renews the license to the GSS Director
granting him total discretion to determine when torture beyond
"moderate physical pressure" can be used.
The GSS Director has just given his okay for the torture to go
"beyond moderate physical pressure". The detainee is grabbed by
the shoulders or by his collar and shaken violently for seconds
or minutes. His head convulses, rattled back and forth, incessantly,
it feels as if it will fly off, he loses his stand, dizziness
overtakes him, his body is on fire. Sometimes he falls unconscious;
sometimes he just falls to the ground. Or maybe he is beaten.
No one knows what methods constitute "moderate physical pressure"
or "beyond moderate physical pressure" since GSS activities and
methods are secret and unreviewable by the public. The information
we know is derived solely from testimony of former torture victims.
The Perversion of the Israeli Legal System
Two weeks ago, the Israeli High Court of Justice, lead by Justice
Aaron Barak, ruled that Muhammed Hamdan, a student from Bir Zeit
University, could continue to be tortured. The Court deferred to the
secret police's "ticking bomb" argument -- that torture was necessary
to uncover information to an imminent bomb attack. This despite the
absolute prohibition against torture under international law and
the fact that the imminence was doubtful -- Hamdan had been in Israeli
custody for over a month. The High Court gave such deference to the
secret police, that one of the justices, Michael Cheshin, rebuked
Hamdan's lawyer as immoral for petitioning the court to stop the
torture.
Later on that week, the High Court rejected another petition to order
the secret police to stop using torture. In this case, the court
ruled that the secret police could continue to deprive Khader
Mubarek -- another victim -- of sleep and to cover his head
continuously with a rancid sack. The court refused to issue a
temporary order to halt the use of moderate physical pressure
during the interrogation, but ordered the secret police to
refrain from placing Mubarek in painful sitting positions.
The High Court's decisions sanctioning torture demonstrate how
perverted the Israeli legal system has become. In the name of
preserving Israel's "democracy" and existence, the High Court
of Justice routinely sanctions trespass on the liberal
states most cherished assets -- one's body and ones liberty.
Justice Aaron Barak -- the President of Israel's Supreme Court,
the same justice that is invited and honored by Harvard and
Yale Law Schools and the American Bar Association as a leading
liberal legal-jurisprudence thinker -- is also the Justice who
permits the GSS to torture, physically and mentally degrade others.
Instead of remaining true to the two most alienable principles of
most legal systems -- the presumption of innocence and the right
to remain silent -- Israeli justices and judges allow the GSS
to treat every Palestinian under interrogation as a convicted
terrorist and to torture him until he talks. Judge Shlomo
Issacson, President of the Ramallah military court and a religious
Jew, ruled once that the Palestinian detainee in front of him
deserved the "difficult" interrogation because he had chosen
to remain silent and was not "cooperating with the interrogators"
i.e. confessing. He extended the detainee's interrogation for
another 14 days with full knowledge that he was returning the
detainee to another round of torture.2 Torture corrupts both
the victim and the torturer. Just as the victim remains
psychologically and, at times, physically scarred by his
traumatic experience, the torturer is mentally corrupted from
dehumanizing his suspect and benefiting from his pain and
suffering. The GSS torture has already corrupted the Israeli legal
system. Cloaking themselves in the moral high ground of security
and protecting Israel's democratic existence, these justices and
judges pervert all principles of human dignity and liberty and
corrode the very foundation and raison d'etre of a democratic
legal system. By continuing to permit and defend torture in all
its forms, these justices and judges have become a threat
to the same liberal and free principles that they were appointed
to protect.
"When the state itself beats and extorts, it cannot longer be said
to rest on foundations of morality and justice, but rather on
force . . . Just as this situation is one of coercion and
submission, so the state itself, which permits it, becomes a state
of coercion and submission. When a state employs forceful means
which no ends can justify, such as torture, it reduces the moral
distance between a governmental act and a criminal act. . .".3
NOTES:
1 Despite the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank cities, the
Israelis continue to operate military courts all over the Occupied
Territories. The Gaza military court still functions today as well.
2 In many cases where the GSS cannot obtain a confession because the
detainee kept silent, or where the GSS lacks sufficient evidence to
bring charges, the detainee is not released but rather sent to
administrative detention. The detention is then approved by another
military judge and is extended periodically by the military commander
upon the approval of the civil administrations legal advisor.
3 Kremnitzer, Mordechai, "The Landau Commission Report -- Was the
Security Service Subordinated to the Law, or the Law to the 'Needs' of
the Security Service?", Israel Law Review, Vol. 23, No. 2-3 1989, at
248.
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Prepared by Allegra Pacheco. Pacheco is an Israeli lawyer at the
Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights (LAWE) and is a
member of the Hebron Solidarity Committee
From: NEWS FROM WITHIN December 1996 published by the Alternative
Information Center in Jerusalem -- http://www.aic.org.
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