Summary
The Israeli governmental inquiry of 1987, set up after two public scandals involving the General Security Service (Shin Beit), whose guidelines for interrogation of security suspects allowed “moderate physical pressure” but not “torture” by the standard international definition (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 4981-5060).
Details
- Israel maintains officially, on Dowty’s account, that the commission’s guidelines do not contradict the 1984 International Convention against Torture, to which Israel is a party, or other prohibitions in international law, and the High Court of Justice upheld the guidelines in a 1993 decision on grounds that they were subject to legislative oversight (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 4981-5060).
- The precise definition of the methods of “pressure” that are allowed remains classified, reflecting, in Dowty’s words, the inherent tension between an obsession with legal precision and the use of interrogation techniques that cannot withstand public scrutiny (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 4981-5060).
- The adoption of the guidelines on the eve of the First Intifada served to legitimize and regularize interrogation practices that soon became more widespread and routinized than ever; Dowty adds that while about half the governments of the world sanction systematic torture in some form, on Amnesty International’s figures as he cites them, few if any have perfected its rationalization and bureaucratization as Israel has (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 4981-5060).
Related pages
The Jewish State: A Century Later, First Intifada, Administrative Detention