SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Israel's Torture Method: Force-Feeding
Netanyahu's justification for pushing forward a bill to legalise force-feeding reveals a contradiction in his logic.
Aug 17, 2015
Miri Regev, Israel's Minister of Culture and Sports, supports torture.
She is not alone. Joining her is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and nearly all ministers and members of Knesset in his coalition have followed suit.
Although almost half of the Knesset members opposed to the bill, the Israeli government supports torture, and thus, is by no accounts different than the governments of Egypt, Syria and many of its neighbours in the Middle East.
Israel, apparently, is not a "villa in the jungle", as so many of its pundits would have us think.
By torture, I am referring specifically to the recently passed law legalising force-feeding, which according to the World Medical Association, the Red Cross, and the United Nations, is considered a cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment, and a flagrant violation of international law.
Of course, the Knesset's legislation on this matter is not unique, even in the midst of Western liberal democracies.
Among the countries that deploy force-feeding against hunger strikers is also Israel's "enlightened ally", the United States.
While the US has been force-feeding inmates in Guantanamo for many years now, this practice actually has deep roots in the American imagination.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the suffragette Alice Paul, who was incarcerated for demanding women's right to vote, embarked on a hunger strike in prison, and was subsequently force-fed by government officials.
The Hollywood feature film Iron Jawed Angels captures the horror parallel to some prisoners' accounts. It documents the struggles of the women's movement and force-feeding as is a horrific form of torture.
Israel's new law is not, at least for the time being, directed against its own citizens, but rather against over 5,750 Palestinian political prisoners from the occupied Palestinian territories.
About 400 of these prisoners have been held in administrative detention without trial - some for up to eight, ten and eleven years.
The presumption of innocence, which is supposed to underlie all progressive and democratic judicial systems, should have been applied to them.
It was not.
And there goes the "villa" metaphor.
Over the past years, many Palestinian political prisoners have embarked on hunger strikes as a form of non-violent protest against the authorities, and currently it is estimated that over 180 prisoners are on strike.
However, examination of Netanyahu's justification for pushing forward a bill to legalise force-feeding reveals a contradiction in his twisted logic.
The administrative detainees are being held in prison contrary to international law and contrary to the principle of due process.
These men have not been granted the fundamental right to a fair trial, because prisoners like Muhammad Allaan, who has been on hunger strike for 60 days, are not considered by the Israeli authorities to be fully human, namely, individuals who bear rights.
At the same time, though, Netanyahu's justification for advancing a force-feeding law stems from the moral imperative requiring us to save human lives.
The contradiction is that on the one hand, the Palestinian political prisoners are treated as sub-human. But on the other hand, justification of the law has to be portrayed as fully human.
However, there is one aspect of this legislative move that is consistent: the desire to harm outspoken Palestinian subjects and to violate their basic right to bodily integrity.
But the contradiction between the sub-human and human is not the sole logical distortion espoused by the Israeli legislators who supported the bill.
It is crucial to highlight that in their struggle against Israel's violation of their basic right to due process, the prisoners launched a hunger strike, which is a recognised form of non-violent protest.
Ironically, the way the Israeli government has chosen to deal with this non-violent protest against its own anti-democratic practice of administrative detention is by instituting yet another serious violation of international law: torture - one of the most severe forms of dehumanisation.
Not all, however, is dark. As the great philosopher Hannah Arendt teaches, even in the most difficult times, one encounters human action that sheds light on the darkness.
Dr. Leonid Eidelman, chairman of the Israeli Medical Association, called upon all Israeli doctors to refuse to perform force-feeding even if the law requires them to do so.
Force-feeding of hunger strikers, Eidelman argued, breaches the principles of preventing damage and maintaining the patient's autonomy over his or her body, thus violating the physicians' code of ethics.
The code of ethics, he intimated, is above the law.
Eidelman is right. The question now is whether all Israeli doctors will heed his call for civil disobedience and refuse to obey the law.
The chances, unfortunately, are extremely slim.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
© 2023 Al-Jazeera English
Neve Gordon
Neve Gordon is a professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London. He is an Israeli activist and the author of "Israel's Occupation" (2008) and co-author (with Nicola Perugini) of "The Human Right to Dominate" (2015) and "Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire" (2020).
Miri Regev, Israel's Minister of Culture and Sports, supports torture.
She is not alone. Joining her is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and nearly all ministers and members of Knesset in his coalition have followed suit.
Although almost half of the Knesset members opposed to the bill, the Israeli government supports torture, and thus, is by no accounts different than the governments of Egypt, Syria and many of its neighbours in the Middle East.
Israel, apparently, is not a "villa in the jungle", as so many of its pundits would have us think.
By torture, I am referring specifically to the recently passed law legalising force-feeding, which according to the World Medical Association, the Red Cross, and the United Nations, is considered a cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment, and a flagrant violation of international law.
Of course, the Knesset's legislation on this matter is not unique, even in the midst of Western liberal democracies.
Among the countries that deploy force-feeding against hunger strikers is also Israel's "enlightened ally", the United States.
While the US has been force-feeding inmates in Guantanamo for many years now, this practice actually has deep roots in the American imagination.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the suffragette Alice Paul, who was incarcerated for demanding women's right to vote, embarked on a hunger strike in prison, and was subsequently force-fed by government officials.
The Hollywood feature film Iron Jawed Angels captures the horror parallel to some prisoners' accounts. It documents the struggles of the women's movement and force-feeding as is a horrific form of torture.
Israel's new law is not, at least for the time being, directed against its own citizens, but rather against over 5,750 Palestinian political prisoners from the occupied Palestinian territories.
About 400 of these prisoners have been held in administrative detention without trial - some for up to eight, ten and eleven years.
The presumption of innocence, which is supposed to underlie all progressive and democratic judicial systems, should have been applied to them.
It was not.
And there goes the "villa" metaphor.
Over the past years, many Palestinian political prisoners have embarked on hunger strikes as a form of non-violent protest against the authorities, and currently it is estimated that over 180 prisoners are on strike.
However, examination of Netanyahu's justification for pushing forward a bill to legalise force-feeding reveals a contradiction in his twisted logic.
The administrative detainees are being held in prison contrary to international law and contrary to the principle of due process.
These men have not been granted the fundamental right to a fair trial, because prisoners like Muhammad Allaan, who has been on hunger strike for 60 days, are not considered by the Israeli authorities to be fully human, namely, individuals who bear rights.
At the same time, though, Netanyahu's justification for advancing a force-feeding law stems from the moral imperative requiring us to save human lives.
The contradiction is that on the one hand, the Palestinian political prisoners are treated as sub-human. But on the other hand, justification of the law has to be portrayed as fully human.
However, there is one aspect of this legislative move that is consistent: the desire to harm outspoken Palestinian subjects and to violate their basic right to bodily integrity.
But the contradiction between the sub-human and human is not the sole logical distortion espoused by the Israeli legislators who supported the bill.
It is crucial to highlight that in their struggle against Israel's violation of their basic right to due process, the prisoners launched a hunger strike, which is a recognised form of non-violent protest.
Ironically, the way the Israeli government has chosen to deal with this non-violent protest against its own anti-democratic practice of administrative detention is by instituting yet another serious violation of international law: torture - one of the most severe forms of dehumanisation.
Not all, however, is dark. As the great philosopher Hannah Arendt teaches, even in the most difficult times, one encounters human action that sheds light on the darkness.
Dr. Leonid Eidelman, chairman of the Israeli Medical Association, called upon all Israeli doctors to refuse to perform force-feeding even if the law requires them to do so.
Force-feeding of hunger strikers, Eidelman argued, breaches the principles of preventing damage and maintaining the patient's autonomy over his or her body, thus violating the physicians' code of ethics.
The code of ethics, he intimated, is above the law.
Eidelman is right. The question now is whether all Israeli doctors will heed his call for civil disobedience and refuse to obey the law.
The chances, unfortunately, are extremely slim.
Neve Gordon
Neve Gordon is a professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London. He is an Israeli activist and the author of "Israel's Occupation" (2008) and co-author (with Nicola Perugini) of "The Human Right to Dominate" (2015) and "Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire" (2020).
Miri Regev, Israel's Minister of Culture and Sports, supports torture.
She is not alone. Joining her is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and nearly all ministers and members of Knesset in his coalition have followed suit.
Although almost half of the Knesset members opposed to the bill, the Israeli government supports torture, and thus, is by no accounts different than the governments of Egypt, Syria and many of its neighbours in the Middle East.
Israel, apparently, is not a "villa in the jungle", as so many of its pundits would have us think.
By torture, I am referring specifically to the recently passed law legalising force-feeding, which according to the World Medical Association, the Red Cross, and the United Nations, is considered a cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment, and a flagrant violation of international law.
Of course, the Knesset's legislation on this matter is not unique, even in the midst of Western liberal democracies.
Among the countries that deploy force-feeding against hunger strikers is also Israel's "enlightened ally", the United States.
While the US has been force-feeding inmates in Guantanamo for many years now, this practice actually has deep roots in the American imagination.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the suffragette Alice Paul, who was incarcerated for demanding women's right to vote, embarked on a hunger strike in prison, and was subsequently force-fed by government officials.
The Hollywood feature film Iron Jawed Angels captures the horror parallel to some prisoners' accounts. It documents the struggles of the women's movement and force-feeding as is a horrific form of torture.
Israel's new law is not, at least for the time being, directed against its own citizens, but rather against over 5,750 Palestinian political prisoners from the occupied Palestinian territories.
About 400 of these prisoners have been held in administrative detention without trial - some for up to eight, ten and eleven years.
The presumption of innocence, which is supposed to underlie all progressive and democratic judicial systems, should have been applied to them.
It was not.
And there goes the "villa" metaphor.
Over the past years, many Palestinian political prisoners have embarked on hunger strikes as a form of non-violent protest against the authorities, and currently it is estimated that over 180 prisoners are on strike.
However, examination of Netanyahu's justification for pushing forward a bill to legalise force-feeding reveals a contradiction in his twisted logic.
The administrative detainees are being held in prison contrary to international law and contrary to the principle of due process.
These men have not been granted the fundamental right to a fair trial, because prisoners like Muhammad Allaan, who has been on hunger strike for 60 days, are not considered by the Israeli authorities to be fully human, namely, individuals who bear rights.
At the same time, though, Netanyahu's justification for advancing a force-feeding law stems from the moral imperative requiring us to save human lives.
The contradiction is that on the one hand, the Palestinian political prisoners are treated as sub-human. But on the other hand, justification of the law has to be portrayed as fully human.
However, there is one aspect of this legislative move that is consistent: the desire to harm outspoken Palestinian subjects and to violate their basic right to bodily integrity.
But the contradiction between the sub-human and human is not the sole logical distortion espoused by the Israeli legislators who supported the bill.
It is crucial to highlight that in their struggle against Israel's violation of their basic right to due process, the prisoners launched a hunger strike, which is a recognised form of non-violent protest.
Ironically, the way the Israeli government has chosen to deal with this non-violent protest against its own anti-democratic practice of administrative detention is by instituting yet another serious violation of international law: torture - one of the most severe forms of dehumanisation.
Not all, however, is dark. As the great philosopher Hannah Arendt teaches, even in the most difficult times, one encounters human action that sheds light on the darkness.
Dr. Leonid Eidelman, chairman of the Israeli Medical Association, called upon all Israeli doctors to refuse to perform force-feeding even if the law requires them to do so.
Force-feeding of hunger strikers, Eidelman argued, breaches the principles of preventing damage and maintaining the patient's autonomy over his or her body, thus violating the physicians' code of ethics.
The code of ethics, he intimated, is above the law.
Eidelman is right. The question now is whether all Israeli doctors will heed his call for civil disobedience and refuse to obey the law.
The chances, unfortunately, are extremely slim.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy