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"Israeli government report admits systematic torture of Palestinians"
"Julian Borger February 11, 2000
The Guardian
The Israeli internal security service, Shin Bet, used systematic torture against Palestinians and regularly lied about it, according to an Israeli government report which has been released five years after it was written.
The report covers the period 1988-1992, when Palestinian youths were mounting a sustained street revolt known as the Intifada. In response, Shin Bet ignored government interrogation guidelines allowing "moderate physical pressure" and went much further, with the worst abuses committed in prisons along the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli human rights organisation, B'Tselem, estimates that thousands of Palestinian detainees - some 85% - were subjected to torture. B'Tselem said that since the beginning of the Intifada, 10 Palestinians have died and hundreds have been maimed as a result of Shin Bet torture.
The Israeli state comptroller, Miriam Ben-Porat, conducted a study of Shin Bet practices and produced her report in 1995, blaming the chain of command under its director, Yaakov Peri.
"The irregularities were not, for the most part, the result of not knowing the line between the permissible and the forbidden, but rather were committed knowingly," the report says. "Veteran and even senior interrogators in the facility in Gaza committed severe and systematic deviations [from the regulations]."
But Mr Peri rejected the report's criticisms, saying that any violations of Shin Bet guidelines were dealt with and corrected at the time.
Gideon Ezra, a member of Likud, the rightwing opposition party, said: "The state comptroller had no way of knowing the impossible task facing the Shin Bet during that period."
The Ben-Porat report was presented in 1995 to a parliamentary sub-committee, which kept it secret until Wednesday, when a supreme court recommendation led to the publication of a brief summary. No Shin Bet officers were ever prosecuted for the abuses committed during the Intifada.
"It's better late than never," Bassam Eid, a Palestinian human rights activist, said of the report. "I really appreciate the Israeli state comptroller for researching it and bringing out. It proves what the human rights organisations were talking about - torture was systemic during the Intifada."
The published summary of the Ben-Porat report does not go into details about Shin Bet torture methods. But according to B'Tselem, which has interviewed hundreds of ex-detainees, the most common techniques were violent shaking, tying up prisoners in painful positions, subjecting them to extreme heat or cold, beating and kicking.
B'Tselem blames the widespread abuses on the government's 1987 Landau commission report, which allowed the use of "moderate physical pressure", including shaking of detainees, if investigators believed that the interrogation would uncover terrorist plots.
Yael Stein, a B'Tselem researcher, said yesterday: "We claimed for years that the minute you allow a little amount of physical pressure you can't limit that amount. Very quickly interrogators are going to use interrogation that is very much more severe."
The Landau commission rules were overturned last September by the Israeli supreme court. But some Israeli MPs are backing a new bill to reinstate the use of "moderate pressure" to help the security forces combat terrorism. The prime minister, Ehud Barak, has also expressed support for such a law.
B'Tselem has issued a policy paper opposing the reintroduction of physical interrogation techniques. It argues: "The supervisory mechanisms will not stop the slide down the slippery slope, which turns democracies into abhorrent regimes where security forces are above the law and immune from punishment whenever acts against Palestinian interrogees are involved."
Ms Stein said that since last year's supreme court ruling, they have not confirmed cases of Shin Bet use of torture. But B'Tselem is investigating claims that some interrogation is being "contracted out" to Palestinian collaborators not bound by Israeli law.
Mr Eid said he was investigating reports of torture of three Palestinian men from Bethlehem by Shin Bet officers. He said it was too early to judge whether the overturning of the Landau rules had led to the complete cessation of the Israeli use of torture.
Source: Guardian UK
Take notice of the date of this story, back in 2000.
Since then, the MOSSAD/CIA "false-flag" ops of 9/11 transpired, giving the green light for even more systemtic torture by both the MOSSAD and the CIA.
Whether the screams are coming from a Shin Bet operated dungeon in Tel Aviv or a CIA torture operation in Afghanistan, both operations show the world who the true enemies of freedom are; the USA and Israel.
That's why numerous people from around the world hate the USA, not for who we are but what we do to their family members in American operated torture dungeons in Gitmo, Baghram or in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
We Americans compound the original crime by lying repeatedly to the world that we don't condone or practice torture, but folks living near USA torture sites know better, since they can hear the screams of pain coming from their family members and see the physical proof of the torture on the bodies of their loved ones.
Even the dead family members, found tossed away on some deserted street like a bundle of rags, who died while under the care of the American "Torquemada", speak loudly."
With comment:
"Ms Stein said that since last year's supreme court ruling, they have not confirmed cases of Shin Bet use of torture. But B'Tselem is investigating claims that some interrogation is being "contracted out" to Palestinian collaborators not bound by Israeli law."
always but always trying to make Arabs look barbarous and Jews look civilized.
The torture israelis inflict is mild compared to their daily slaughter of Palestinians without so much as giving it a thought, let alone debating it in court - this torture report is a publicity stunt to give the impression that israelis play by "rules" when they don't.
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"Money" has no value - people do."