There are reports of prisoner abuse from Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, Iran, Syria, Rwanda, Morocco,
Laos, Jordan, Turkey, and many other countries. While
Israel's systematic abuse of Palestinians prisoners has been ongoing
since the occupation began over 50 years ago, the state is not doing
anything other authoritarian regimes don't. Violence is how such
regimes handle dissidents.
For why and how Israel practices torture against Palestinian prisoners
on an institutional level, see Democracy and the Mis-Rule of Law: The
Israeli Legal System's Failure to Prevent Torture in the Occupied
Territories by Barak Cohen. He refers to the 1987 Landau
Commission and a 1999 Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ) ruling
about Israeli interrogation methods. The Commission was setup because
the Shin Bet has tried to hide the fact that agents had beaten to
death two Palestinian bus hijackers. The Commission found routine and
systematic use of torture during interrogations:
The Commission squarely refuted Israel's official averments that it
did not practice torture. In fact, the Commission found that since
1971, GSS [the Shin Bet] interrogators' policy was to extract
confessions from Palestinians through coercive means and to perjure
themselves before the military courts to hide the fact that they
had coerced confessions. The Commission also found that GSS agents
routinely lied to military judges regarding the use of torture to
coerce confessions from Palestinian detainees and that the practice
was routinized through guidelines distributed through the GSS.
While the Commission expressed a preference for non-violent
interrogation methods, it stated that "when these do not attain their
purpose, the exertion of a moderate measure of physical pressure
cannot be avoided". I.e., "physical pressure" is a useful tool to
extract confessions and information from prisoners. The phrases
"moderate measure" and "physical pressure" were not defined by the
Commission and left open for interpretation.
The HCJ ruling however disavowed all forms of torture and cruel and
inhumane treatment. It explicitly condemned four types of
"physical pressure"; "shaking", position abuse,
excessive tightening of suspects' handcuffs, and sleep
deprivation. Though there is ample evidence from human rights
organizations and former prisoners that these techniques are
still practiced. The belief that physical and psychological
torture works and is justified is widespread.
To understand the psychological mechanisms causing people to commit
torture, the Milgram's Experiment may be a good starting
point. Former US soldier Lynndie England who tortured prisoners
in Abu Ghraib justified her actions as follows:
... that she was goaded into posing for the photographs by her then
lover and more senior fellow soldier, Charles Graner. 'They said in
the trial that authority figures really intimidate me. I always
aim to please.'
She has no regrets, by the way. The October 7 attack and the Israeli
leaders' dehumanizing rethoric against "the enemies" may be
triggering for the "pleasers" guarding Palestinian prisoners. Hence,
there may have been an uptick in violence against Palestinian
prisoners in the last six months.
Indeed, the recently published New York Times investigation into
the Sde Taiman prison cites gruesome acts of torture that can't
serve any purpose other than to satisfy the abuser's own
sadism:
A U.N. report details scenes at a military hangar inside Sde Teiman,
an army base in southern Israel that has become synonymous with the
detention of Gazan Palestinians.
Mr. al-Hamlawi, the senior nurse, said a female officer had ordered
two soldiers to lift him up and press his rectum against a metal
stick that was fixed to the ground. Mr. al-Hamlawi said the stick
penetrated his rectum for roughly five seconds, causing it to bleed
and leaving him with “unbearable pain.”
A leaked draft of the UNRWA report detailed an interview that gave a
similar account. It cited a 41-year-old detainee who said that
interrogators “made me sit on something like a hot metal stick and
it felt like fire,” and also said that another detainee “died after
they put the electric stick up” his anus.
Mr. al-Hamlawi recalled being forced to sit in a chair wired with
electricity. He said he was shocked so often that, after initially
urinating uncontrollably, he then stopped urinating for several
days. Mr. al-Hamlawi said he, too, had been forced to wear nothing
but a diaper, to stop him from soiling the floor.
In addition to al-Hamlawi, the investigation cites two other
detainees, Shaheen and Bakr, who were strapped to chairs wired with
electricity and were shocked with electricity until they passed
out. Electric chairs are not contraptions easily built by rogue
soldiers, hence the practice of shocking prisoners must have
institutional support.
