Israel's Tainted System and the Torture of Palestinian Detainees

By Frank Collins

The torture of Palestinian detainees, widely practiced in Israeli prisons under the rubric of "moderate physical pressure," has been condemned by practically every international human rights organization. The corruption and incompetence of the Israeli internal intelligence service (Shabak) also has been criticized widely in the Israeli Hebrew press.

In fact, there is an obvious connection between the faulty "intelligence" gathered by Shabak and the ubiquitous practice of torture by Israeli interrogators. Few people in any culture would contest the statement that confessions obtained under torture have no value as legal evidence. Under torture most persons can be coerced to agree to anything to stop the torture. Most persons under torture who have something to hide, like the names of sympathizers or co-conspirators, also know that the only defense is to make up false information or denounce the innocent to protect the guilty.

All this is well known. "Evidence" obtained under torture is dismissed from consideration in the courts of virtually every democratic country. Even in Israel, where the use of torture is authorized by law, charges against Israeli Jews (as distinguished from charges against Arabs from the occupied areas) have been dismissed on the grounds that the evidence presented against them was tainted because it was obtained under duress. And in February of this year, charges against a 15-year-old Arab boy were dropped because his confession had been extracted under torture.

The decision of the Israeli government's Landau Commission allowing the use of "moderate physical pressure" to obtain confessions provides the cover for Shabak's routine practice of torture to extract confessions from Palestinian detainees in the occupied territories. To complete the duplicity, the detainees are then required to sign documents in Hebrew, a language that many detainees are unable to read. As the result of false confessions, many innocent Palestinians are detained and interrogated using the same methods, thus multiplying the mountain of bogus information in Shabak records.

The final result is an environment in which large numbers of Palestinians, particularly the young, live in constant terror of arrest and torture. Perhaps this is the intent of the prevailing system of intimidation.

Ultimately, however, the tainted evidence gathered by Israeli authorities using such tainted methods corrupt the system it is designed to serve. There have been many instances when the Israeli army itself has been embarrassed by decisions that it has made relying on false or misleading data supplied by Shabak. And, among foreign intelligence services with which Israel exchanges information, Israeli offerings are held in contempt. At best they are considered to be selective and self-serving. At worst they are just plain wrong.

Frank Collins is a free-lance writer specializing in the Middle East.