A Wrong Turn by Israel

For at least 11 years, Israel has held a number of Lebanese it suspects of being members of Hezbollah, the militant, Iran-backed Islamic organization that sprang to prominence after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. Some of these men have apparently never been charged with specific crimes. Some who were convicted remain in custody even though they have completed their sentences. Until recently, many of the prisoners were not even allowed to have access to lawyers.

Last November, in a decision that has become known only in recent days, a panel of the Israeli supreme court ruled that the detention of the Lebanese is permissible. However “grave and painful” a violation of human rights they are suffering, said the justices in a 2-1 decision, their captivity is justified by Israel’s security needs and its continuing efforts to win the return of Israeli servicemen missing in Lebanon. In short, the justices sanctioned the seizing of Lebanese to be used as bargaining chips.

This is as wrongheaded and immoral a decision as any high court in a democratic country is likely to make. It approves state hostage-taking for political ends. It implicitly allows indefinite detention without charges. The rationale for all this is the protection of national security. But of course that is the same rationale used in Iraq or Syria or Iran to ignore human rights and assert the primacy of the state over the rights of the individual.

David Ben-Gurion, one of Israel’s founding fathers and its first prime minister, dreamed that his country would become a light unto the nations, an exemplar in law, statesmanship and morals. The justices’ ruling takes Israel still farther from that goal. In the name of security against terrorism, Israel has co-opted the tactics of the terrorists.