Israel’s Military Court System is the Model to Avoid
Should the United States, seeking to recalibrate the balance between security and liberty in the “war on terror,” emulate Israel in its treatment of Palestinian detainees?
That is the position that Guantanamo detainee lawyers Avi Stadler and John Chandler of Atlanta, and some others, have advocated. That people in U.S. custody could be held incommunicado for years without charges, and could be prosecuted or indefinitely detained on the basis of confessions extracted with torture is worse than a national disgrace. It is an assault on the foundations of the rule of law.
But Israel’s model for dealing with terrorism, while quite different from that of the U.S., is at least as shameful.
Long before the first suicide bombing by Palestinians in 1994, Israel had resorted to extrajudicial killings, home demolitions, deportations, curfews and other forms of collective punishment barred by international law.
Imprisonment has been one of the key strategies of Israeli control of the Palestinian population, and since 1967 more than half a million Palestinians were prosecuted through military courts that fall far short of international standards of due process.
Most convictions are based on coerced confessions, and for decades Israeli interrogation tactics have entailed the use of torture and ill-treatment. Tens of thousands more Palestinians were never prosecuted, but were instead held in administrative detention for months or years.
Israel had the ignominious distinction of being the first state to publicly and officially “legalize” torture. Adopting the recommendation of an Israeli commission of inquiry, in 1987 the government endorsed the euphemistically termed “moderate physical pressure,” and tens of thousands of Palestinians suffered the consequences.
In 1999 the Israeli High Court prohibited the routine use of “moderate physical pressure.” But the ruling left open a window for torture under “exceptional circumstances.”
These tactics, many of which have been used by American interrogators against foreign prisoners, include painful shackling, stress position abuse, protracted sleep deprivation, temperature and sound manipulation, and various forms of degrading and humiliating treatment. In an interview with three Israeli interrogators published in the Tel Aviv newspaper Ma’ariv in July 2004, one said the General Security Service “uses every manipulation possible, up to shaking and beating.”
About 10,000 Palestinians are imprisoned inside Israel and more than 800 are administratively detained. Their families in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are barred entry to Israel, so Palestinian detainees are, in that sense, as isolated as prisoners in Guantanamo. Just last week, the Israeli Supreme Court had to order one of the most notorious detention facilities to allow prisoners 24-hour access to toilets.
The Israeli military court system compares to the U.S. military tribunal system established for Guantanamo in ways that U.S. lawyers like Stadler and Chandler deplore.
In addition to the reliance on coercive interrogation to produce confessions and to justify continued detention, prisoners in Israeli custody can be held incommunicado for protracted periods, and lawyers face onerous obstacles in meeting with their clients.
While it is true that detainees are brought before an Israeli military judge at some point, this process is hardly impartial. Such hearings tend to be used to extend detention and often take place in interrogation facilities, not courts. Detainees are rarely represented by lawyers or apprised of their rights, including a right to complain about abuse or to assert innocence. Failure to assert innocence at this hearing can be used as evidence of guilt.
Any information, including hearsay and tortured accounts from other prisoners, can be used to convict or administratively detain Palestinians.
If we learn anything, then, from the Israeli experience, perhaps it should be that torture and arbitrary or indefinite detention exacerbate a conflict and endanger civilians.
Americans should be proud of the noble work that Guantanamo lawyers are doing to press for a restored commitment to the rule of law by the U.S. government. If these lawyers wish to identify an apt model from Israel, it is not the government or the military court system.
Rather it is the Israeli and Palestinian human rights communities who have been working for decades to establish respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Lisa Hajjar is associate professor and chair of the Law and Society Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of “Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza” (University of California Press, 2005).
Shameful And disgusting too.
“If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”
David Ben-Gurion to Nahum Goldmann, the president of the World Jewish Congress
Uh, too late. The US is already following a combination of the Israel and French version of “justice” be it war or domestic. You’re basically deemed guilty until proven innocent. Pathetic that the US and Israel would loudly proclaim that they hate the French but secretly “love” their EVIL ways !
I wouldn’t be surprised if I were called an anti-semite for my comment on this article as it deals with Israel, but in Nazi-Germany they had a thing they called “Nacht und Nebel”, meaning that people were lifted off their bed in the middle of the night and taken to an unknown destination, to be detained, tortured and sometimes killed. It seems that both the US and Israel have taken a leaf out of the Nazi’s book. The only difference off course being that after WW II some German top officials were sentenced to death for the crimes they’d committed. I live in Holland very close to The Hague, that specializes in war-crimes, but I don’t expect any American or Israeli to be there soon.
Israel should be called for what it is: Jabotinskyland. Or maybe, to keep it in the same letter, Irgunia.
For Har Davids -
Is it not a matter of extreme irony that the sons, grandsons and other relatives of the victims of the Nazi depredations should behave in such a similar manner?
Most Jews are not primarily descended from the Jews of ancient Israel, but from a different people who converted for political convenience.
It is ironic that the Israeli government behaves similarly to that of Nazi Germany, and they have forgotten what it is they where called to do for the rest of us. They have failed, and they have behaved worse than animals in their treatment of the Palestinians.
There is, of course, a nexus between the two. Unconditional American support for Israel’s often brutal policies, and willingness to do its bidding in our own Middle East policy, play a very large part in the hatred of us throughout the Muslim world. Opposing Israeli war crimes–and by any measure there are many–is not synonymous with antisemitism. One can be both a Zionist and an advocate for human rights, fairness and, indeed, Palestinian rights. Many Israelis and members of the Jewish diaspora are. Our, and the Israelis’, current policies are not only unjust, but self-defeating. Only by respecting international law and basic human rights can either nation survive and prosper.
You are right Lawyer many Israelis are against what is going on in their country, and the treatment of the Palestinians, and it is to their credit.
The sad thing is that the Israelis should know better. It is said that you learn from your conquerors, but the Israelis should also learn from their own experiences.
http://www.populistamerica.com/how_quickly_we_forget
Unfortunately, they don’t seem to. Does anyone anymore?
What is it the Jews say about-
“not forgetting history so as not to repeat it?”
Thats why the constant drone of THEIR OWN past on Public Radio and TV. NO one else matters.
Which brings me to- American(Jewish)Public broadcasting or “non commercial TV” ….Seems BOEING has been advertising hard on Public TV, you know BOEING? they make Jets and CRUISE MISSILES…. NUKE tipped ones even.
Don’t forget to support your local Public TV, they need the money.
“Israel had the ignominious distinction of being the first state to publicly and officially “legalize” torture.”
Sickening! Absolute “head-cases.” “Only the tortured torture.”
“One can be both a Zionist and an advocate for human rights, fairness and, indeed, Palestinian rights. Many Israelis and members of the Jewish diaspora are.”
I would say the clear-majority ‘are’ (something comments here rarely-reflect).
And ‘No’, most Israeli’s are neither descendants from the original-tribes (who, long-ago, also conquered and drove-out the ‘natives’), nor are they ex-Holocaust/War victims — few, sadly, survived that genocide, and fewer-still remain.
Considering the 1-Trillion+ U.S.-’support’ for the even-now only 5-million-strong Jewish-State (not to mention the Reparations from Germans and others, and massive funding/donations from the ‘Diaspora’), it’s surprising that no-one considered, in 1946, just paying the under-one-million Palestinians there to leave — with more than ’shirts on their back’, that-is. That would have saved a lot of suffering/heartbreak since…
In fact, it seems to me that it would _still_ be cheaper/better to make appropriate-Reparations to today’s 6+ million Palestinians (in Israel and in horrid ‘refugee-camps’, elsewhere) than to continue fight these ‘Wars’ for needful “Israeli-Security”, and the continuation of all the costly/inhumane ‘repressions of natives’ with all the other crimes associated with denying Muslims their “Twin-State” — promised them after WW-II. Really, how much ‘per head’ would have to be shelled-out to make a Palestinian then actually ‘welcomed’ elsewhere in the ME, and as a valued ‘full citizen’ (or welcomed in the US, for that-matter)? I would bet that about two-years worth of the always-massive American ‘aid’ to this wealthiest-per-capita ME-country would cover it ‘nicely’…if matched by Israel herself, and then properly-invested/Trust-Funded/Administered (with perhaps that-much-again to reimburse the few actual/remaining ‘owners of anything’ within Israel). The US, just in Iraq, has shelled-out more than another-Trillion — and bought NO ’security’ for Israel (or itself) in the process.
How’s that for a “Peace Plan”?
Was this article about Israel or Nazi Germany? I keep getting the two confused these days. WTF?
Be prepared to see this used in Rep debates to whitewash this turd.
Let me guess how this came about.
They’re sitting around brain storming how to sell this one to the people and in walks Wolfie or Kristol and they say “I finally got it!!! Israel does it!!! They ought to sweep the Christian Israel supporters and Jewish Americans on the Right and quite a few on the left too!!! Score!!! They all high five and the fax machines nearly catch fire sending it to FOX, Limbaugh, and the rest of the GOP.