Does terror justify torture? Israel example shows never

In 1987, after Israel8217;s General Security Service GSS came under fire for trying to cover up two incidents of abuse by its agents8212;the beating to death of two Palestinians who had been arrested for hijacking a bus, and the extraction of a false confession of spying from an Israeli8212;the Landau Commission was formed to investigate GSS interrogation methods.

That commission concluded not only that the GSS employed 8216;8216;coercive8217;8217; interrogation methods but also that those methods were essential to Israel8217;s security. Obtaining information from captured terrorist suspects to prevent further attacks was necessary to protect Israeli citizens, the commission said, and effective interrogation requires 8216;8216;moderate physical pressure8217;8217; when non-violent methods fail.

What the commission meant by 8216;8216;moderate physical pressure8217;8217; was not publicly disclosed, but the approval expressly covered existing GSS practices, the nature of which were revealed over the next several years. Those included shabach, binding the prisoner to a small chair that is tilted forward so he cannot sit stably, covering his head with a sack and playing loud music; qambaz, or the 8216;8216;frog crouch8217;8217; in which the suspect must crouch on the tips of his toes for five-minute intervals; and more pedestrian methods such as violent shakings, excessive tightening of handcuffs and sleep deprivation. Brain damage and permanent disability, along with death, were among the results of these methods.

Israel8217;s high court rebuffed challenges to these practices until 1999, when it ruled on complaints brought by two Israeli public interest groups and six individuals who had faced GSS interrogations. In two of the individual cases, the court acknowledged the government8217;s assertion that the interrogations, employing methods described above, resulted in information that thwarted planned terrorist acts. Nevertheless, the court declared all the methods unlawful, given their proven harm to life or limb and their infringement of 8216;8216;human dignity8217;8217;.

8216;8216;The State of Israel has been engaged in an unceasing struggle for both its very existence and security, from the day of its founding,8217;8217; began the Israeli high court8217;s opinion, but 8216;8216;a democratic, freedom-loving society does not accept that investigators use any means for the purpose of uncovering the truth.8217;8217; The 8216;8216;destiny of democracy8217;8217; is often to fight 8216;8216;with one hand tied behind its back,8217;8217; the opinion eloquently concluded, and 8216;8216;not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it.8217;8217;

One can oppose Israel8217;s policies in the West Bank and Gaza and still applaud this stand by its high court8212;and learn from it. Surely the US interest in combating terrorism is no greater than that of Israel. Nor is our commitment to democracy any less staunch or robust.

True, the court left open the possibility that an interrogator who used force against a captured terrorist to get information to prevent an imminent attack8212;the hypothetical 8216;8216;ticking bomb8217;8217; scenario8212;might be able to avoid criminal liability under the standard criminal-law 8216;8216;necessity8217;8217; defence. Israel8217;s parliament, the Knesset, can also overrule the court with legislation authorising force in interrogations. It has not done so. And regrettably, human rights groups allege that the banned interrogation methods have returned, particularly since the start of the second Intifada in September 2000.

But even with these caveats, the court8217;s decision remains a powerful testament to the essential moral dimension of democracy and its core principle that security is subordinate to, indeed meaningless without, dignity. We know that force in interrogations8212;whether employed by US captors or by foreigners to whom we send detainees8212;yields unreliable information. We also know it endangers Americans captured abroad. Let us decide too that it is anathema to our concept of democracy, as it is to Israel8217;s.

8212; Sadiq Reza, an associate professor at New York Law School, will be a visiting researcher at Harvard Law School8217;s Islamic Legal Studies Program this fall