Is Israel ashamed of these torture camps? Far from it
https://arab.news/z4fhk
When Israel’s premier human rights organization B’Tselem produces a detailed report entitled “Welcome to Hell — The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps,” you would think the world would take note. Some outrage, perhaps, after a video emerged appearing to show an Israeli soldier raping a Palestinian prisoner? As yet, not one leader of a state allied or close to Israel has condemned this.
A normal reaction to this crime would be horror. Instead, there has been the unedifying spectacle of hordes of Israelis, including members of the Knesset, breaking into the Sde Teiman detention center to demand that soldiers held for questioning regarding the rape be released.
Even more macabre was to see that the morality of raping a prisoner was the subject of debate on Israeli prime-time television. One of the soldiers accused even appeared to defend the army. It was debated in the Knesset, too.
Many Palestinians and human rights defenders would define the entirety of Gaza as one giant torture camp. The conditions are so appalling, unsanitary, and disease ridden. The killing, maiming, and destruction are relentless.
The accusations outlined in B’Tselem’s 118-page indictment are painful to read in detail. It claims that a network of a dozen civilian and military prison facilities are “dedicated to the abuse of inmates. Such spaces, in which every inmate is intentionally condemned to severe, relentless pain and suffering, operate in fact as torture camps.” A doctor at an Israeli prison facility has also just revealed that “two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries.”
Israel’s “detention without trial” program has also been extended dramatically. By early July, almost 5,000 Palestinians were held without trial. Thousands of others have been detained and later released. This industrial detention program included doctors, lawyers, journalists, and human rights defenders. Some were possibly Hamas members, many were not. But the prohibition on torture is absolute, no matter what organization a prisoner may be belong to. Often the only reason given was that they were “men of fighting age.” One Israeli prison commander summed up the attitude: “As far as we are concerned, they are all terrorists.”
All in all, 60 Palestinians, 48 from Gaza, have died in Israeli detention centers or torture camps since last October. B’Tselem says it knows of reports that another 12 have died in Israeli custody.
Detainees held without trial should be released or charged
Chris Doyle
Will this stop US, British and German politicians spouting nauseating platitudes about shared values with Israel, that it is part of this mythical “Western civilization?” Will they condemn state-sanctioned torture and abuse on a colossal scale? The best the US could do was ask the torturing state to investigate itself.
History says otherwise. Torture and sexual abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons has a long history. Since 1967, according to B’Tselem, Israel has incarcerated over 800,000 Palestinian men and women from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Palestinians have died in Israeli detention on a frequent basis. Now this is taking place on an industrial scale.
These Israeli torture camps are akin to Abu Ghraib, the US detention facility in Iraq notorious for its abuse of Iraqi detainees. That damaged US prestige and credibility, and American leaders knew it. Israeli leaders at present barely care for reputations.
The difference with Israel is that Palestinians have been dehumanized to such an extent that Israeli leaders see nothing wrong in what is going on. Those carrying out this sexual abuse and torture will not be held responsible. For many in Israel, they are heroes.
The international community has to end this. First, it should demand immediate full access to all Israeli detention facilities for the International Committee for the Red Cross. It should reject the sinister deal that was being cooked up between Israel and the former British government to have two British legal advisers visit the prisons, accompanying an Israeli military judge — a role that the neutral ICRC was set up to carry out. It would have been a political stitch-up. It appears the new British government has abandoned the plan.
Second, all detainees held without trial should be released or charged. Families should have proper visiting rights. Conditions in prisons must be improved, including the reversal of decisions to restrict meal and shower times. Overcrowding, with more than 10 to a cell, must end.
Third, Israel cannot investigate its own role in state-sanctioned torture. The US and others must abandon the position that Israel is capable of acting as judge and jury for its own crimes. An independent inquiry, ideally through the International Criminal Court, should be set up. All those involved in abuse must be held accountable. Nobody should be conducting business as usual with Israel while these and other abuses continue.
• Chris Doyle is director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding in London. X: @Doylech
