[Ppnews] Don't emulate Israel at Guantanamo

[Political Prisoner News]

Don't emulate Israel at Guantanamo
Lisa Hajjar, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Oct 30, 2007

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9068.shtml

A Palestinian political prisoner freed from an Israeli prison 
celebrates with friends and family as he crosses into the Gaza Strip 
at the Erez crossing, 2 October 2007. (Wissam 
Nassar/<http://www.maanimages.com>MaanImages)

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 US 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 US, 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 US military 
tribunal system established for Guantanamo in ways that US 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 US 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 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520241940/theelectronic-20>Courting 
Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza 
(University of California Press, 2005). This essay was originally 
published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is republished with 
permission.




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