Norman Finkelstein on the Not-so-New New Anti-Semitism

[rman]

Democracy Now
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
Norman Finkelstein on the "Not-so-New New Anti-Semitism" and Shlomo Ben Ami on Terror, Torture, and Peace
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/14/1518240

Norman Finkelstein argues that some supporters of Israeli government policies have attempted to de-legitimize criticism by disingenuously heaping the charge of anti-Semitism. Shlomo Ben Ami defends Israel's record on human rights, and says peace will only come about through a negotiated two-state settlement.

AMY GOODMAN: We return to our debate between the former Israeli Foreign Minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, and Professor Norman Finkelstein. I asked Finkelstein to discuss a section in his new book called the "Not-So-New New Anti-Semitism."

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, actually, I think it's useful to connect it with the conversation we've just had. Namely, I think when honest and reasonable people enter into a discussion about this topic, you will have large areas of agreement, some area of disagreement, and frankly -- and I’m not saying it to flatter; I say it because I believe it; I don't flatter by nature -- I’m quite certain that if Palestinians -- if representatives of the Palestinians were to sit down with Shlomo Ben-Ami in a room, weren't subjected to the sorts of political pressures that Dr. Ben-Ami describes from Israel, I think a reasonable settlement could be reached, and I think he's reasonable, in my opinion. We can disagree on some issues, but he's reasonable.

The problem is when you get to the United States. In the United States among those people who call themselves supporters of Israel, we enter the area of unreason. We enter a twilight zone. American Jewish organizations, they’re not only not up to speed yet with Steven Spielberg, they're still in the Leon Uris exodus version of history: the “this land is mine, God gave this land to me," and anybody who dissents from this, you can call it, lunatic version of history is then immediately branded an anti-Semite, and whenever Israel comes under international pressure to settle the conflict diplomatically, or when it is subjected to a public relations debacle, such as it was with the Second Intifada, a campaign is launched claiming there is a new anti-Semitism afoot in the world.

<more>

[htuttle]

1. I watched this discussion yesterday

...and I thought it was one of the more reasonable, illuminating discussions of the Israeli/Palestinian issues that I'd seen in a long time. Over the course of the hour I saw, Finkelstein and Ben-Ami found far more middle ground than they differed. I'd recommend it, if only as proof that it's possible to have an intelligent discussion of these issues without name-calling or demonizing one's opponent.

[Coastie for Truth]

2. A DU thread worth reading is "'Why depict Israel as a chamber of horrors?"

based on Benjamin Pogrund's

A reasonable, well written, rational article, and I highly recommend it.

BTW, I do contribute to Palestinian charities, e.g., , and you may

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Colorado Blue]

4. And it's now ILLEGAL, #1, and #2, the extent of human rights

abuses including torture, in a HOST of nations far exceeds anything Israel has ever done.

Indeed, the US is quite guilty, as are Israel's neighbors. It should be noted that Syria and Egypt are frequent destinations of "extraordinary rendition," and that the situation in Africa's many battlezones simply defies description.

I suggest a quick review of the conflicts in Darfur, Uganda, Sierra Leone, just for starters. MILLIONS of people have been killed, tortured, mutilated, raped, and displaced just in the past few years.

Then, perhaps a little historical review of South America might be in order.

The fact that Israel is routinely condemned for things other people actually do, on an enormous scale, is appalling.

It should clearly be a wake-up call to any would-be progressive.

Also, generally lost in the condemnations of Israel is one simple, salient fact: Israel has been engaged in a war for survival since day #1 of her birth, and her people were under fire for decades before that. This isn't the case with China, for example, or the Sudan, or Argentina, or Britain - whose soldiers have recently been caught on tape abusing Iraqis - yet Israel takes the heat for all of them.

Why?

[Englander]

6. It still continues, regardless.

Isn't it extraordinary that the policy *was* actual official Govt policy
for years, that Isreal was;

'the only country in the world where torture was legally sanctioned.'

and yer actually, apparetntly, failing, again, to find any fault with the
policies, however repellent, of the GoI. All I can see is justification, I
can't see any indication that you think that this policy should end, or
isn't justified.


'Torture by the General Security Service

On 6 September 1999, a nine-judge panel of the Supreme Court unanimously outlawed methods of physical force that were routinely used in interrogations by the General Security Service (GSS). This decision voided the interrogation guidelines previously in effect, which included the use of interrogation methods that constituted torture, including violent shaking, holding and tying the interrogee in painful positions, sleep deprivation, covering the interrogee's head with a sack, and playing of loud music.

The decision was made in response to seven petitions filed by human rights organizations on behalf of Palestinian interrogees. The organizations are the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel

The High Court decision ended legal torture of Palestinians in interrogation. Israel was the only country in the world where torture was legally sanctioned; the guidelines allowing torture were drafted by a governmental commission headed by a former Supreme Court Justice and were approved by a governmental committee. A Parliamentary committee and the State Comptroller were appointed to monitor implementation of these guidelines, and the courts were called upon to approve legal maneuvers to sanction them.

In their precedent-setting decision, the Justices stated that, "If the state wishes to enable GSS investigators to utilize physical means in interrogations, it must seek the enactment of legislation for this purpose." However, the Justices added that such a law, which would necessarily harm the liberty of interrogees, must be "befitting the values of the State of Israel, enacted for a proper purpose, and to an extent no greater than is required," as stated in Israel's Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom.

Following the decision, some public officials called for enactment of a law that would allow the GSS to continue to use physical force in its interrogations. Likud MK Reuven Rivlin submitted a bill along these lines. On 15 September 1999, the Ministerial Committee for GSS Matters, headed by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, appointed a committee to examine whether and how to incorporate into legislation interrogations that include the use of physical force. In December 1999, the committee (headed by Deputy Attorney General Manny Mazuz and Deputy State's Attorney Rachel Suqar) submitted its recommendations to the government. The members did not reach agreement on what legislation should be enacted, and submitted to the prime minister different recommendations regarding appropriate legislation.

On 15 February 2000, the head of the GSS, Ami Ayalon, announced that he was withdrawing his demand for legislation allowing the use of physical force in interrogations. Ayalon abandoned this demand primarily because of the repercussions such legislation would have on Israel's international stature. Prime Minister Barak stated in a Knesset debate on 14 March 2000 that he supports legislation allowing the use of physical force in interrogations in "ticking bomb" cases, i.e., "when it is necessary to immediately save life from a concrete danger of a serious attack, and no other reasonable course exists to achieve this result."

Since the Supreme Court's decision, and especially since the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada, various public officials have called for legislation to allow torture during interrogations.

B'Tselem emphasizes that any legal permission to use physical force in interrogations, however symbolic the permission, must be completely rejected. Even if it can be proven that physical force in interrogations would save human life, it cannot be allowed. Torture constitutes such a serious violation of an individual's human dignity and basic humanity that there can be no trade-off between freedom from torture and other considerations.

Furthermore, experience indicates that any law allowing the GSS to use any degree of physical force, even in exceptional cases, is equivalent to legalizing torture. This conclusion follows from examination of the manner in which the Landau Commission recommendations were implemented over the past twelve years. This examination reveals that it is impossible to limit the scope and severity of physical force so that it does not become routine and reach the level of torture. The State Comptroller's report of 1995, which was made public only in February 2000, supports this conclusion and notes the wide-scale deviations from the rules established by the Landau Commission.

In addition, any statute allowing the GSS to use physical force or intentionally inflict mental suffering during interrogations - even if limited to instances necessary to save lives, and even if the force is not severe enough to constitute torture - contravenes one of the most basic principles of international law: the absolute prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The freedom from torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment is a basic and absolute right of every person, and this right may not be violated under any circumstances.

Israel faces threats to its security, including threats from groups that kill indiscriminately to advance their political objectives. However, a state is not allowed combat such threats and illegal acts by using unlawful means itself. The acts of those groups are reprehensible because of their unwillingness to reject certain means to attain their goals. A state that allows its security services to torture detainees adopts a similar position that the ends justify the means. This approach stands in stark contradiction to the basic values of a democratic state. As Justice Barak stated in the decision prohibiting GSS interrogation methods, "This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it."

http://www.btselem.org/english/Torture/Torture_by_GSS.asp

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

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[Englander]

8. Some, hopefully, informative links;

'Inside Israel's secret prison

By Aviv Lavie

Detainees are blindfolded and kept in blackened cells, never told where they are, brutally
interrogated and allowed no visitors of any kind. Dubbed 'the Israeli Guantanamo,' it's no wonder
facility 1391 officially does not exist.

M, who serves in the Intelligence Corps reserves, remembers the first time he was sent to do guard duty at Camp 1391. Before climbing to the top of the observation tower he received an explicit order from the responsible officer: "When you're on the tower you look straight ahead only, outside the base, and to the sides. What happens behind you is none of your business. Do not turn around."

M., of course, couldn't resist the temptation and occasionally snuck a look behind him. From atop the tower he saw the double fence surrounding the camp, enclosing a compound ruled by trained attack dogs; the jeep that patrols inside the two fences; the vehicles utilized by the members of the unit who man the base; and especially the large concrete structure, dating from the British Mandate period, when it was used by the British police, and which now bears a description that carries an aura of mystery: Israel's secret detention facility.

Some of the people who were interviewed for this article dubbed the camp "the Israeli Guantanamo." There are in fact certain points of resemblance between the American detention camp in Cuba and the Israeli site, mainly in relation to the legal questions that hover over them and the gnawing doubt about whether they are consistent with the values of democracy. In terms of the exotic, though, we lag far behind. Whereas the watchtowers of the Guantanamo facility look out over the aquamarine waters of the Caribbean Sea, the secret prison in Israel is situated by the side of a completely ordinary road in the heart of a bustling region in the center of the country.

A narrow, tree-lined road ascends to the camp, and inside it looks like any other army base: barracks, mess hall, workshop to repair vehicles. Even the guards are not the best the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have available. The guard towers and the patrols are manned, for the most part, by graduates of the IDF's general basic training program, who "never carried out an assault against anything," as one of them put it. "As always with us, there's a lot of hoo-ha, but behind it is the usual army chaos," an officer who served at the base says ironically.

What really surrounds Camp 1391, more than physical protection, is an entrenched wall of silence. Since the 1980s, when the facility was moved from a more southerly location to its present site, the Israeli authorities have made every effort to keep its very existence secret. And even now that its existence has been revealed, the state refuses to answer the many questions of the world and of the Israeli public: Where is the facility? Who is being held there, why, and for how long? Were they tried before being locked up in Camp 1391, or are they awaiting trial? What are their conditions of incarceration? In every other lockup in Israel the answers to these and many other questions are open and amenable to external, legal, public and international review.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=331637&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

___________________________________________


PCATI to Israeli government: "Shut down secret detention facility 1391"

Open Letter, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), 4 September 2003

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), through attorneys Avigdor Feldman and Michael Sfard, this week called on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Minister of Defense, Shaul Mofaz and Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, demanding that they the revoke the status of facility 1391 as a military prison and stop incarcerating detainees, suspects, prisoners or any other persons in it.

Alternately, PCATI demands that the secrecy surround the facility be lifted, that it’s location be published, that it be opened to visits by attorneys, the Red Cross, human rights organizations and other supervisory bodies and that the facility be turned into an ordinary detention center administered by the Military Police and under the supervision of the relevant authorities.

According to Hannah Friedman, Executive Director of PCATI, the existence of facility 1391, as described in the press and the media, is a reality reminiscent of dictatorial regimes where rulers secretly incarcerate their opponents in unknown detention camps, and is a clear indication that the state that has surrendered its democratic values.

The letter to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense and the Attorney General follows below.

Text of the letter

1 September 2003

To:

The Prime Minister of Israel Mr. Ariel Sharon

The Minister of Defense Mr. Shaul Mofaz

Attorney General Mr. Elyakim Rubinstein

Re: Detention Facility 1391

Dear Sirs,

1. On Behalf of my client, the Pubic Committee Against Torture in Israel.

2. We appeal to you as those in charge of the operation of the General Security Service and the Israel Defense Forces and following the exposure of detention facility number 1391.

3. Over the years, Palestinian detainees claimed that they were held at a secret detention facility whose exact location was unknown to them and where they were interrogated by General Security Service personnel, that no member of their families knew where they were being detained and that their attorneys were not given an opportunity to meet with them.

4. This highly charged practice, denied by the security services, led to the submission of dozens of petitions to the High Court of Justice by families concerned that their dear one had been detained and had disappeared for days and weeks without anyone knowing where he was held and by what authority, demanding that the IDF notify the petitioners where their relative is being held.

5. The existence of Detention Facility 1391was revealed within the framework of HCJ cases number 8696/02 and 10327/02 Jadallah et al vs. the IDF Commander of the West Bank filed by Hamoked-The Center for the Defense of the Individual on behalf of the families of two detainees who had "disappeared" after their arrest. Hamoked-The Center for the Defense of the Individual succeeded in discovering the existence of the facility, and the affidavits of two detainees, who had been held there without their or their relatives knowledge of the facility's location, were submitted to the Court. The existence of the facility was confirmed for the first time in the statement of the State Attorney's Office. The State Attorney's statement includes the following:

"Facility 1391- located in a secret military base. The base serves various needs of the security forces and for this reason its location is confidential. Because of the concern for harm to the security of the State, it is impossible to reveal the details in this public statement...

In addition to its principal designation, there is a detention facility in the base"

6. A declaration by the Minister of Defense, pursuant to section 505 of the Military Judicial Law - 1955 and dated April 2002 was annexed to the State Attorney's response and states that the facility serves as a military prison (Military Jurisdiction Order (Designation of a Location as a Prison) (2002).

7. After this initial exposure, facility 1391 "gained" further exposure through news stories, one on channel 10 and the other in the "Ha'aretz" newspaper. According to the article published on 18.8.03 in the "Ha'aretz" magazine under the title "The Darkest Corner in Israel", the facility served as a detention, interrogation and incarceration facility many years before April 2002 when the Minister of Defense signed the declaration mentioned above. The article and the testimonies of the interrogees and detainees included in it, also reveal that the conditions at the detention facility are inhuman and that interrogators employ illegal means of interrogation including torture and psychological pressure against the detainees.

8. It must bestated, firstly, that a situation under which people are detained in a secret location, a place unsupervised by the relevant authorities, human rights organization, the courts, a place to which attorneys representing detainees have absolutely no access is a reality known to us from dictatorial regimes where all-powerful dictators hide their opponents away in unknown detention camps. There is no democratic state in the world where this practice exists and it is regrettable that the State of Israel has set such an undesirable precedent in the field of the protection of human rights and the rights of detainees and prisoners.

9. Moreover, the "disappearance" of persons as if the earth had swallowed them, particularly at the hands of the authorities, is a clear sign of state that has given up its democratic values, and that its administration and security forces have long ago forgotten the legitimate limits of their power.

10. The testimonies regarding facility 1391 are both shocking and frightening and it comes as no surprise that there is a direction link between the administration of a secret facility, with no public supervision, and the appalling conditions of detention and the contempt demonstrated towards the detainees by the interrogators and wardens.

11. So, for example, detainees who had been held at facility 1391 testify to the practice of having their eyes covered for many hours, to the airless cells where a bucket, which remains in place for days, serves as the toilet. A fact, which is repeated in the statements of all the detainees, is the lack of ventilation in the windowless cells that are, in addition, painted in dark colors to prevent the detainees from distinguishing between day and night. The detainees also state that there are no showers in the cells and that they were unable to shower or brush their teeth for weeks.

12. The detainees testify to the harsh treatment they suffered at the hands of their interrogators and by soldiers who act as wardens at the facility. This, also, is made possible by the secret nature of the facility and the lack of any supervision of the goings on in it.

13. It is difficult to believe that in Israel of 2003 a human rights organization is forced to write a letter which includes such grotesque contents to the heads of the state. Yet the difficult and sad fact is that in Israel of 2003 the army and the General Security Service maintain a detention camp where people are brought after they were taken away from their families in the dark of night, without any of their relatives having a clue as to where his dear one is being held, and where they are cut off from the outside world for weeks and months and held in inhuman conditions and exposed to torture, humiliation and ill treatment.

14. In addition to the above, one wonders what the legal basis was for holding detainees and prisoners at facility 1391 before April 2002 when it was formally declared to be a military detention facility. It is clear, today, that for many years detainees were held at the facility and the declaration was made only last year.

15. In view of the above, we request that you revoke the status of facility 1391 as a military prison and cease the holding of detainees, suspects, and prisoners of any kind in it. Alternately, we request that you lift the secrecy surrounding the facility and publish its location, open it to visits by attorneys, the Red Cross, human rights organizations and other supervising bodies and turn it into an ordinary detention facility as for example Prisons number 4 or 6 which are administered by the Military Policy under supervision of the relevant authorities..

16. We would be most grateful for your prompt reply so that we can advise our client as to the legal alternatives available.

Sincerely Yours,

Attorney Avigdor Feldman
Attorney Michael Sfar

http://electronicintifada.net/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/7/1885

___________________________________


Facility 1391: Israel's secret prison

It has been removed from maps and airbrushed from aerial photographs. But Facility 1391 certainly exists - you just have to ask the Palestinians and Lebanese who have been imprisoned and tortured there. Chris McGreal reports

Friday November 14, 2003
The Guardian

The men under the black hoods all have the same question once the blindfolds and manacles are off: Where am I? A voice filtering through a narrow slit in the steel door told Sameer Jadala he was "in Honolulu", Raab Bader that he was "in a submarine" and "outside the borders of Israel", Bashar Jadala that he was "on the moon". None of them imagined it at the time, because only a handful of the political and security establishment knew such a thing existed, but they were prisoners in Israel's Guantanamo: Facility 1391.

"I was barefoot in my pyjamas when they arrested me and it was really cold," says Sameer Jadala, a Palestinian school bus driver. "When I got to that place, they told me to strip and gave me a blue uniform. Then they gave me a black sack. They told me: 'This is your sack. You need to keep it with you. Any time someone comes to your cell, you must put it on your head. Any time they deliver the food, you must put it on your head. You must never see the soldiers' faces. You do not want to know what will happen if you take it off.' Sometimes I thought I would die in that place and no one would ever know."

Facility 1391 has been airbrushed from Israeli aerial photographs and purged from modern maps. Where once a police station was marked there is now a blank space. Sometimes even the road leading to it has been erased. But Israel's secret prison, inside an army intelligence base close to the main road between Hadera and Afula in northern Israel, is real enough. For 20 years or more it has been housed in a large, imposing, single-storey building designed by a British engineer, Sir Charles Taggart, during the 1930s as one of a series of garrison forts designed to contain growing unrest in Palestine. Today, the thick concrete walls and iron gates are themselves protected by a double fence overseen by watchtowers and patrolled by attack dogs.

The prison has held Lebanese abducted by the Israeli army as hostages, Iraqi defectors and a Syrian intelligence officer who tried to defect but was accused of spying and chose to remain in another prison rather than return home and face a firing squad. More recently, scores of Palestinians were incarcerated in 1391 for interrogation, which finally led to the almost accidental disclosure of a prison the state decreed did not exist.

Those who have been through its gates know it is no illusion. One former inmate has filed a lawsuit alleging that he was raped twice - once by a man and once with a stick - during questioning. But most of those who emerge say the real torture is the psychological impact of solitary confinement in filthy, blackened cells so poorly lit that inmates can barely see their own hands, and with no idea where they are or, in many cases, why they are there.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1084796,00.html

[Englander]

9. Part II;

Torture Worldwide

As indicated by the summaries below, drawn from Human Rights Watch research in 2004 and 2005, many countries continue to brutalize detainees or suspects. Some governments justify such abuses as inevitable in the global war on terrorism. Others use the excuse of more local enemies. But in any context, such abuses have terrible long-term consequences, destroy the lives of detainees, dehumanize interrogators, and are absolutely prohibited by universally agreed-upon standards.

>snip

ISRAEL
Abusive interrogation techniques continue to be practiced in Israel. The Supreme Court there ruled in September 1999 that six frequently-used practices of the Israeli Security Agency (then known as the General Security Service, or GSS) violated existing laws. These included beatings, prolonged sleep deprivation, violent shaking, and prolonged painful positioning. There appears to be agreement among Israeli human rights activists and defense lawyers that these techniques are used less frequently, but have been replaced by techniques that are extremely stressful psychologically, including: greater isolation for longer periods; denial of access to lawyers and family members for extended periods; prolonged interrogation sessions; use of collaborators to threaten detainees; and threats to family members.
The Supreme Court ruling also permits the security agency to claim the “necessity defense” in cases where “exceptional interrogation means” are allegedly needed, as in so-called “ticking bomb” cases. The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported in July 2002 that the GSS had up to that point employed “exceptional interrogation means” against ninety Palestinians. The readiness of the Attorney General to grant “necessity defense” requests, along with the fact that since 1999 no Israeli Security Agency or GSS officer has faced criminal or disciplinary charges for acts of torture or ill-treatment, appears to have led to an erosion of the restraints initially imposed by the 1999 ruling.

In addition, physical violence—or the threat of it—is often present in the treatment of detainees. Most former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch in 2004 described physical abuse at the time of their arrest and transfer to Israeli detention or interrogation centers.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/04/27/china10549.htm

_____________________________

Torture In Israel
2002-2003

PCATI’s report published in April 2003 revealed the following:

Based on official data, GSS agents interrogated thousands of Palestinians per year during the Intifada, and over 200 at any given moment. In July 2002, the GSS related to the press that 90 Palestinians were defined as 'ticking bombs' and were tortured (that is, were exposed to 'physical pressure'). Research by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel shows that the number tortured is actually much greater; and that GSS agents who interrogate Palestinian detainees torture them, degrade them, and otherwise ill-treat them routinely, in blatant violation of the provisions of international law, mainly in the following manners:

1. Violence: Beating, slapping, kicking, stepping on shackles; Bending the interrogee and placing him in other painful positions; Intentionally tightening the shackles by which he is bound; Violent shaking.

2. Sleep Deprivation.

3. Additional 'Interrogation Methods': Prolonged shackling behind the back; Cursing, threats, humiliations; Depriving the detainee of essential needs; Exposure to extreme heat or cold.

4. Secondary Methods: Isolation and secrecy; Imprisonment under inhuman conditions.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel estimates that a considerable portion of all interrogees, if not most, had been exposed to interrogation methods which include "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental." In other words these methods, as applied, cause, at least in their combination and accumulation over time, the level of gravity and cruelty that constitute torture as defined in international law.

In contrast with the years 2000-2001, the years 2002-2003 saw a deterioration in the treatment of Palestinian detainees by the GSS:

* Each month, hundreds of Palestinians were subjected to one degree or another of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (ill-treatment), at the hands of the GSS and bodies working on its behalf. By way of comparison - in September 2001 we estimated that the total number of detainees being subjected to torture and other ill-treatment reached 'only' dozens. The numbers have thus increased dramatically.

* Each month, the ill-treatment reaching the level of torture as defined in international law was inflicted in dozens of cases, and possibly more. In other words - torture in Israel had once more become routine.

Information obtained by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel shows that official sources admitted using many torture methods, including slapping, 'bending,' shaking, sleep deprivation, and prolonged shackling.

'Rubber Stamps' for the GSS: The HCJ, The Attorney General, and The State Prosecutor's Office

The bodies which are supposed to keep the GSS under scrutiny and ensure that interrogations are conducted lawfully acted , instead, as rubberstamps for decisions made by the GSS.

* The High Court of Justice did not accept even one of the 124 petitions submitted by the Public Committee Against Torture against prohibiting detainees under interrogation from meeting their attorneys during the years 2002-2003.

* The State Prosecutor's Office routinely transfers the complaints made by interrogees to a GSS agent for investigation, and it is little wonder that he did not find in even a single case that GSS agents tortured a Palestinian 'unnecessarily'.

* The Attorney General grants - wholesale, and with no exception - the 'necessity defense' approval for every single case of torture.

The result is a total, hermetic, impenetrable and unconditional protection that envelops the GSS system of torture, and enables it to continue undisturbed, with no supervision of scrutiny to speak of. The achievements of the HCJ ruling of 1999, which was to have put an end to large-scale torture and ill-treatment, limiting it to lone cases of 'ticking bombs,' have worn thin. The 'defense of necessity' has also become no more than a veneer. From the research undertaken by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, it is clear that torture is carried out in an orderly and institutional fashion. We know that cases termed 'ticking bombs,' do not involve a lone interrogator improvising "in the face of an unforeseen event," as the High Court stipulated. Interrogators appeal to their superiors in an orderly fashion, receive approval in advance, and employ certain methods repeatedly, at least some of which (including the 'bending' method) require cooperation between a number of interrogators.

The 1999 HCJ ruling constituted a significant and bold step in the right direction, but the HCJ failed in not prohibiting torture and ill-treatment absolutely, and leaving intact the legal - and moral - concept, according to which a GSS interrogator is authorized to consider, albeit in extreme situations 'only', torture as a legal and legitimate ant legal option. The achievements of the ruling are wearing down due to those failures, due to the GSS' policy of torture, and due to the fact that the HCJ, the State Prosecutor's Office, and the Attorney General have, regarding this matter, transformed themselves from guardians and protectors of the law into sentries at the gates of GSS torture chambers.

http://www.stoptorture.org.il/eng/background.asp?menu=3&submenu=3

[Poll_Blind]

5. Janeane Garofalo we going into this on her AAR show yesterday.

Very interesting stuff- nice to hear a non-Dershowitz supporter on the air. Dershowitz believes in using torture- a repugnant tip-of-the-hat to the fascism which he allegedly fights. His smearing of anyone critical of him or the current conservative government of Israel as anti-semitic also came up and was justly ridiculed, publicly.

Supporting torture is not a Democratic plank. You cannot support torture and be a Democrat. It's good to see the Left picking up on this.

PB