להורדה: קטעי הפרוטוקולים שהודלפו מתוך הדיונים החשאיים בבית המשפט על עינויי השב”כ בפרשת דומא
The entire settler movement is up in arms about the alleged use of torture against Amiram ben Uliel, the suspected ringleader in the infamous murder of the Dawabsheh family in an arson attack in 2015. It has secured the transcript of the alleged interrogations of the four suspects in the case and distributed 20,000 copies in synagogues throughout the Occupied Territories. The purpose is to stir up ire against the Shin Bet for its torture methods. Not, mind you torture methods used against all suspects. They support torturing Palestinian security suspects. Because they’re not as high on the evolutionary scale as Jews apparently. It’s only Jews who they object to torturing. Because Jews are, apparently God’s chosen people and created in the divine image. Frankly, I’d dispute the notion that settlers are made in God’s image. Rather, I think they’re created in Satan’s image. At least these murderers are.
It’s curious that the lead interrogator and torturer faulted during these interrogations is a Shin Bet Major General named Netzer, who I’ve mentioned here before. He’s long used his “professional” techniques to extract confessions from Palestinians. But treating Jewish terrorists similarly is a fairly new phenomenon. And man, do settlers hate it. They’re howling in rage about it. Apparently, they believe that killing Palestinians is God’s work and no one, especially no Jew has the right to deter them from their appointed rounds of making the world safe for Jews by ridding it of Palestinians.
I am translating part of the transcript here not because I support settlers. In fact, I hate these murderers. But unlike them, I believe in democracy and the rule of law for both Israeli Jews and Palestinians. I don’t believe in torture even to extract confessions from terrorists, whether Jewish or Palestinian. Other nations have found many ways to combat terrorism without it. That Israel stoops this low indicates it doesn’t belong among the ranks of western nations or democracies.
In current legal proceedings, the settler terrorists and their terror-loving legal counsel have appealed against the use of torture in obtaining confessions. Since the case presents a threat to the Shin Bet and its methods, the security apparatus has secured a gag order from a typically pliant Israeli judiciary against reporting on the appeal. While no media outlet has reported this information, the settlers have circulated it in the thousands of copies.
פרוטוקולים מתוך דיוני משפט דומא, שמתנהלים בדלתיים סגורות, הודפסו באלפי עותקים והופצו בבתי כנסת בשטחי יהודה ושומרון ובירושלים pic.twitter.com/EFfJcdmgrK
— נטעאל בנדל (@netaelbandel) June 15, 2018
The above Twitter thread offers a reminder to an Israeli reporter who notes that settlers are distributing the transcripts. The Justice ministry warns that the circulation of the transcript violates a gag order. Thank God for a country where such nonsense doesn’t prevail.
Here I will join in violating the gag order, but for far different reasons. In the following colloquy, a Shabak interrogrator using the pseudonym, Steven, responds to cross examination by the appellants’ attorney. This is from page 205 of the transcript. The hearing was held on December 15 2016 :
Q: Do you remember that it [torture] began when someone covered his eyes and slapped him? Is that how it began?
A: Yes, I remember.
Q: The next step was that of bending [his head]. The one who bent him over was Netzer himself, no?
A: Correct.
Q: There are interrogators who stand next to the head, which is bent over backwards?
A: Correct.
Q: More or less this treatment proceeded on and off during the entire interrogation, a number of times?
A: Yes.
Q: The interrogators who grab the head from behind, do they take care that the head doesn’t strike the floor?
A: Yes.
Q: When you say so that it doesn’t strike the floor, that’s not in order to protect the head, but rather so that the head is already on the floor. So the element of the muscle pain, which is the entire purpose of the exercise, isn’t relevant, right?
A: This is a mixture of two different things to which you refer. First of all, so that the head isn’t damaged by the floor and the second so that these methods will be effective.
Q: I say this to you because due to the nature of this process it’s [the interrogation and torture] is a long, exhausting, difficult process. Raising the head and bending it down is done aggressively, or because the suspect resists, or in order for it to be effective. But this is done with force?
A: The return of the suspect to the bent over position requires brute force of the interrogator who raises the head by overcoming the resistance of the suspect or because of the weight. But this is not done as a show of force, but rather because force is demanded.
Here are two other Hebrew language transcripts that were also leaked.
“Other nations have found many ways to combat terrorism without it ”
Can you please identify these other nations ?
Can you cite some of the specific techniques used by these other nations to extract confessions from terrorists without torture or ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’?
It’s not my job to do your research and homework for you. A quick Google search will help you answer your questions. There have been terror campaigns in most western democracies in the post WWII era, especially since the 1960s. Islamist terrorism also continues. Yet somehow the security forces in these countries don’t resort to torture to prevent terrorism. Apparently, they know something the Shabak torturers don’t know.
There is of course one exception: while the U.S. manages to fight domestic terrorism without using torture, it has in the past used torture against Al Qaeda suspects. Luckily, American torture practices seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
Okay. I did my homework.
Armed Proletarians for Communism (PAC) was an Italian far-left terrorist group founded in 1976 and disbanded three years later, during the “Years of Lead”.
The Italian police arrested and tortured suspected PAC members.
https://baruda.net/2009/02/03/le-torture-contro-i-pac-italia-febbraio-1979/
And torture in Italy continued……
“On the night of 21 July, a police unit stormed into the Diaz School – a building provided to peaceful protestors from all over the world in which they could spend the night – with the intention of finding the black blocks who –according to them – were hiding in the school. They only encountered peaceful people, but that did not stop them. The activists were taken by surprise while asleep and were violently and repeatedly beaten by up to 15 policemen at the same time. They were dragged down several staircases by the hair, piercings got torn off, dreadlocks were shaven, and bones were broken. However, this was just the beginning. The arrested people were taken to the police station of Bolzaneto, where they were abused and tortured by the authorities. As Nick Davies explains (Davies 2015), some of the torture consisted in keeping the prisoners standing and awake throughout the night, denying them the right to call a lawyer or a family member, cutting their hair, forcing the prisoners to sign declarations, and urinating on the detainees because they refused to sing fascist hymns.”
Extra Credit Assignment:
“Yet somehow the security forces in these countries don’t resort to torture to prevent terrorism. ”
The British tortured IRA prisoners in the 1970’s, and the Spanish government tortured Basque ETA suspects during Spain’s ‘Dirty War’, during the 1980’s.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/the-torture-centre-northern-ireland-s-hooded-men-1.2296152
It seems to me, that when countries find themselves in a war with large, well-organised terror groups, they pretty much react the same, i.e, use of torture to extract confessions.
Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Israel and the United States, to name but a few.
And yet most nations don’t. The question is why do you feel the need to justify the unjustifiable? Torture is evil and the people who order and commit these acts are evil. Full stop. But these people don’t care. That is really the truth about torturers and their enablers. And make no mistake, you are an enabler. If you don’t believe that then everything the Nazi did is back on the table and acceptable. You can’t have it both ways.
@ Philly Frozen: Again, UK and Spain certainly did use torture but once again it was over 50 years ago. All the EU countries continue to face both far right & Islamist terror. But none seem to use torture now. That’s NOW, not fifty years ago. Go back to the drawing board. You’ve fallen flat on your face once again. Poor hasba-shlub!
The world’s biggest democracy gets a bad report card.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/16/wikileaks-cables-indian-torture-kashmir
“All the EU countries continue to face both far right & Islamist terror”..
I said ‘large, well-organised terror groups’, such as ETA, Red Brigades, IRA, Hamas, LTTE, etc.
Lone wolves, splinter cells, suicide bombers and internet inspired or radicalised terrorists don’t fit the description of ‘large, well-organsized terror groups’.
@ PhillyFrozen: Ah, you’re acknowledging that India follows Israel’s lead in torturing Kashmiri activists. Where do you think they learned these techniques?? Where do you think they buy all their weapons? And what model do they look to when they seek to validate their hatred of Muslims?
You haven’t offered a single example of any EU democracies using torture against terror suspects in the past fifty years. I wonder why?
That’s the end for you in this thread. Do not publish again here.
@ Philly Frozen:
Not really. In fact, you should go back to school and learn how to present a truly persuasive argument, which you haven’t done here.
Holy Moses, you discovered that a single European country out of 28 used torture, and way back in 1979, 50 years ago!! When Israel uses it virtually every day & has probably since the founding of the State–though perhaps the systematic torture is only a product of the past few decades.
At any rate, that’s astounding. Well, I guess my whole theory that most of the rest of the countries either haven’t used torture and don’t use it today, is kaput. I’ll have to go hang my head in shame.
On a serious note, I never said there might not be outliers. And you’ve found one, a single one. Congrats!
Philly Freeze is of course being disingenuous. Yes Britain used torture against the IRA. There was a difference though. There was a massive campaign in this country. A Royal Commission was set up, which actually voted by 2-1 to endorse what it called ‘enhanced interrogation’ or whatever the euphemism was. The Prime Minister accepted the minority report of a Labour lawyer. The European Court of Human Rights having ruled against Britain’s use of torture Britain was forced to stop.
Of course in any security state the security forces will use violence and sometimes torture as in the Irish cases. But in Britain we have a strong civil society which could push back against such behaviour. Where is the campaign in Israel against the persistent use of torture against Palestinians? None. On the contrary the courts endorse torture whereas the British courts continually ruled against the British government under Blair and then Cameron which attempted to hide details of extraordinary rendition etc. The Courts have just forced the British government to apologise for rendering a Libyan and his wife for torture. In Israel the government approves and the courts are happy to go along with it.
That is the difference. And when we talk about ‘terrorism’ it is the Israeli government which is the terrorist not those who oppose it. Israel murders at will, Even the British government held a long expensive inquiry into the Bloody Sunday murders, of 14 people, in 1972 in Derry. Where is the independent judge led inquiry into the murder of 120 people in Gaza? All of this is why Israel is not a democracy but an ethnnocratic police state
@Tony
Who is being disingenuous?
The IRA gave up armed resistance and negotiated a peace deal with HMG.
The ETA gave up their struggle for independence last month.
The Red Brigades disbanded years ago and the LTTE was utterly defeated on the battlefield..
Hamas has not disbanded, has not begun to negotiate peace, has not been defeated on the battlefield, and has given up their struggle.
Who is being disingenuous.
@Philly Frozen: You”re being disingenuous and changing the subject. We were noting that torture has rarely been used in Europe for decades.
The IRA gave up armed resistance as part of an agreement under which the IRA was recognized and integrated into the political system, where it now serves in government t. When Israel agrees to such terms with Hamas, let us know.
ETA did not give up the struggle for Independence. They dusbanded and the struggle for independence continues in a political context. LTTE was not defeated on the battlefield. The Sir Lankans engaged in genocide and slaughter to crush LTTE. these crimes will eventually be tried before the ICC just as Israel’s will. So if you want Israel compared to Sri Lanka, be my guest.
You’re done this thread. This is the second time I’ve told you this. Do not publish further in it. If you do you will be moderated.
Hamas have, several times, offered a long=term truce to Israel, in accord with Islamic law. Israel has refused to consider it. I believe that if Israel were to agree to a truce, the rockets etc. would stop, and this might provide a chance for Israel, Hamas and Palestine to get together to solve the terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
I think the use of the word ‘hate’ on the subjects of your journalistic subject is problematic as you should come from an objective POV, otherwise, how can I as reader trust your information and interpretation.
@Ariel Levi: why is it you hold me to a different standard than you would any garden variety settler “journalist?” Their views are ‘objective” even when they’re spewing anti Palestinians hate. But I have to be objective So as not to offend your tender sensibilities. I got news for ya bud, take a hike!
As for how you can trust me, I never asked you to. Nor do I care one way or the other. My work and its credibility is proven and doesn’t require your approbation.
Who said I was taking those reporters seriously? When they write about “trrrorists” I role my eyes and determine what do I think about it.
But even they won’t write ‘I hate arabs’. It will show from their words but saying it out in the open is a whole new level.
Oh my goodness. So now there’s a virtue in hating Arabs but not writing it publicly?? Since when? Not to mention that they don’t need to say publicly they hate Arabs because virtually every story they cover and every Israeli they feature is saying the words for them. They don’t need to state their own opinions. They can just quote Lior, Wolpe, Ginsburg, Shapira & the whole lot of rancid treif rabbis.
Oh and when you call an Arab who’s done nothing wrong beyond living his life a ‘terrorist” that speaks volumes and exposes the hate explicitly.
But shouldn’t you be better than them?
Do you consider them journalists or zio-hasbara\propaganda puppets?
@ Ariel: You don’t understand what I am doing. I am a journalist and activist. I both report straight objective news and offer my own analysis of the news. When I report news I do so as a journalist. When I offer analysis I do so both as a journalist and activist. That is different than a traditional journalist. It is a hybrid that is now very common. You are using an out of date model of what blogging and journalism are.
I consider most Israeli journalists to be stenoraphers and extensions of the security apparatus. There are exceptions, mostly writing for Haaretz and a few writing for other papers.
Why don’t you publish the full protocol?
@ someone: Sure, I’ll just go and order it from the justice ministry’s public affairs office. They’ll send it right out to me. 😏
I get what I get and publish it. But I will ask about the entire thing and see if I can get access.
You might enjoy this interview with MP Smotritz.
https://theliberal.co.il/50/