Introduction

Abstract

This issue of the Israel Law Review is devoted to a written academic symposium on the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Methods of Investigation of the General Security Service (GSS) Regarding Hostile Terrorist Activity (the “Landau Report”). The Commission was established in May, 1987 to investigate GSS interrogation practices and to reach legal conclusions concerning them. The need to establish the Commission followed revelations of activity within the GSS which was prima facie unlawful.The Report discusses a dilemma fundamental to any democratic state forced to cope with hostile terrorist activity (HTA): the dilemma “between the vital need to preserve the very existence of the State and its citizens, and [the need] to maintain its character as a law-abiding State which believes in basic moral principles” (R., 77). The only solution to that dilemma, according to the Report, requires that the “law itself … ensure a proper framework for the activity of the GSS regarding Hostile Terrorist Activity” (R., 79).