'Moderate' Torture On Trial: The Israeli Supreme Court Judgment Concerning the Legality of the General Security Service Interrogation Methods

Abstract

The torture and ill-treatment of persons incarcerated for political activities has been a practice long employed by colonial regimes to suppress indigenous independence movements. For years, a multitude of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip had been subjected to such treatment pursuant to an official Israeli governmental policy authorising the use of 'moderate' measures of physical and psychological 'pressure'. To the great dismay of the international community, the Supreme Court of Israel granted effective judicial approval of this policy in a series of rulings issued in the mid-1990s. As the torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians continued, the backlash of international criticism intensified, and in late 1999 the court revisited the matter in a consolidated application brought against, inter alia, Israel's General Security Service. Although many have hailed the case as a positive reversal of Israeli judicial policy, this article offers a critical assessment of the judgment arguing that, on its face, the ruling failed to put a decisive end to Israel's official endorsement and widespread use of torture against Palestinians.