🚀 go-pugleaf

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44664-2004Jun15.html

NABLUS, WEST BANK - The accounts of physical abuse of Iraqis by American
guards at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad sounded achingly familiar to
Anan Labadeh. The casual beatings, the humiliations, the trophy photos
taken by both male and female guards were experiences he said he underwent
as a Palestinian security detainee at an Israeli military camp in March of
last year. 

There was, he added, a significant difference: The Israelis have rules, he
said, and their techniques for breaking down prisoners are far more
sophisticated. "What the Israelis do is much more effective than beatings,"
he said. "Three days without food and without sleep and you're eager to
tell them anything. It just shows us the Americans are amateurs. They
should have taken lessons from the Israelis." 

Many of the questions raised by the Abu Ghraib scandal, and by the United
States's self-declared war on terrorism, are the kinds that Israel has been
wrestling with for decades. Where is the line in a democracy between
coercion and torture? What kinds of interrogation techniques are morally
acceptable when dealing with a suspect who may have knowledge of a "ticking
bomb" -- an imminent attack? And what about the damage those techniques
inflict on relations between an occupying power and its subjects? 

"Unfortunately, when you're fighting a war against terror there are many
difficult issues you face every day," said a senior Israeli government
lawyer who defended Israel's policy on interrogating suspects. "Maybe the
United States is beginning to discover what Israel has had to deal with for
a long time." 

Although its officials never use the word "torture," Israel is perhaps the
only Western-style democracy that has acknowledged sanctioning mistreatment
of prisoners in interrogation. In 1987, following a long debate in legal
and security circles, a state commission established a set of secret
guidelines for interrogators using what the panel called "moderate physical
and psychological pressure" against detainees. In 1999, Israel's Supreme
Court struck down those guidelines, ruling that torture was illegal under
any circumstances.