Israel, Say No to Torture

Earlier this year Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that Shin Bet, the internal security agency, must stop using extreme physical force--meaning torture--when interrogating suspected Palestinian terrorists. That decision, widely acclaimed by Israeli human rights organizations and internationally, is now under challenge. More than one-third of the members of the Knesset are supporting legislation to sanction what are euphemistically called “special interrogation means” against Palestinian prisoners, defined as “physical pressure on the suspect’s body.” Such a backward step would be utterly unworthy of a country that takes pride in its humane heritage and democratic values.

The argument for abusing prisoners boils down to perceived compelling need: Torturing a suspect who might have knowledge of a potential terrorist act is allowable if there’s a chance it could save lives. It is the familiar and ethically dangerous rationale that in certain circumstances the end justifies whatever means are employed.

Supposedly force would be used only in exceptional cases. What experience shows is that the exceptional all too easily comes to be seen as the norm. For more than a decade, Palestinian prisoners were routinely subjected by their Israeli interrogators to violent shaking and other forms of pain in efforts to extract information or confessions. Some died as a result. There’s no way to know whether these methods aborted any terrorist incidents. What is known is that the Israeli Supreme Court, which is seldom accused of being soft on terrorism, unanimously ruled that using force against suspects is unacceptable.

It’s easy enough--and true--to argue that prisoners in Arab jails, including those of the Palestinian Authority, are likely to be treated far more harshly than those in Israeli prisons. Many other regimes also routinely employ torture. That has nothing to do with the traditions and values on which Israel was founded. The Knesset will soon face a fateful choice. If it makes Israel the only nation to legally sanction torture, it will earn the contempt of every other democracy.