General Security Service Research Articles

Moderate Torture on Trial: Critical Reflections on the Israeli Supreme Court Judgement concerning the Legality of General Security Service Interrogation Methods

Moderate Torture on Trial: Critical Reflections on the Israeli Supreme Court Judgement concerning the Legality of General Security Service Interrogation Methods

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

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.

Israel's High Court of Justice Ruling on the General Security Service Use of "Moderate Physical Pressure": An End to the Sanctioned Use of Torture?

Israel's High Court of Justice Ruling on the General Security Service Use of "Moderate Physical Pressure": An End to the Sanctioned Use of Torture?

Supreme Court of Israel: Judgment Concerning the Legality of the general Security Service's Interrogation Methods

Supreme Court of Israel: Judgment Concerning the Legality of the general Security Service's Interrogation Methods

Vigorous Shaking of Political Prisoners as a Means of Interrogation: Physical, Affective, and Neuropsychological Sequelae

Torture is a crude and ancient method of extracting information and confessions from prisoners. Its use is still widespread throughout the world, but its techniques have become increasingly sophisticated. Today, information and confessions are commonly extracted from political prisoners with few signs of physical trauma. For instance, Israel's General Security Service has come to employ vigorous shaking as one such means of interrogation within the Occupied Territories of the Gaza and West Bank. This procedure may sound innocuous, but there are good reasons to believe that vigorous shaking can induce whiplash-related injuries. Such evidence is found in the child abuse and motor vehicle accident literature. Although global intellect may appear unaffected, more subtle emotional and cognitive dysfunction can create lasting impairment. This article concludes that vigorous shaking of political prisoners is a dangerous and potentially lethal mode of interrogation that should be discontinued by Israel's General Security Forces and avoided by all governments.

Varying methods of state violence

At some point during 1991–92, something substantial changed in the way Israel's security agencies interrogated Palestinian detainees. The change was not in the number of detainees interrogated; on any given day in 1993, some four hundred to six hundred Palestinians continued to be interrogated by either the General Security Services (GSS) or the military (Israel Defense Forces; IDF). Overall, Israel interrogated some five thousand Palestinians every year from 1988 to 1994. Nor was the change one of interrogation results: the conviction rate of Palestinians in the military courts remained above 96 percent, with most convictions based on confessions obtained during interrogation. According to official statistics, of the 83,321 Palestinians tried in military courts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between 1988 and 1993, only 2,731, or 3.2 percent, were acquitted. The security forces were still questioning a remarkable proportion of the adult male population, obtaining vast amounts of information on Palestinian social, political, and military activities.

Achieving Non-repudiation of Receipt

A designer of secure Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or other emerging electronic commerce systems must consider an EDI-specific threat-repudiation of receipt-in addition to general security services such as authentication, confidentiality and integrity. We address this security issue by first examining the previous work done in this area, and then proposing a novel protocol to achieve non-repudiation of receipt. By using two simple ideas, a conditional signature and a public notice-board, the new protocol can achieve this security service in a simple but effective manner.

Alleged false confession, voluntariness and ‘free will': testifying against the Israeli General Security Service

The concept of ‘voluntariness’ is commonly used within adversarial legal systems to determine the admissibility of disputed confessions. This paper describes a confession extracted by the Israeli General Security Service (GSS) and highlights the legal and psychological issues concerned. It is concluded that, in Israeli military law, what is legally allowed may not permit the exercise of free will and freedom of choice. The criteria used to decide on ‘voluntariness’ are adjusted to suit the purposes of a given legal system.

New Gender Studies: Portraits of Palestinian Women. . Orayb Aref Najjar, Kitty Warnock. ; The Women Are Marching: The Second Sex and the Palestinian Revolution. . Philippa Strum. ; Making Women Talk: The Interrogation of Palestinian Women Detainees by the Israeli General Security Services. . Theresa Thornhill. ; Keepers of the History: Women and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. . Elise G.

New Gender Studies: Portraits of Palestinian Women. . Orayb Aref Najjar, Kitty Warnock. ; The Women Are Marching: The Second Sex and the Palestinian Revolution. . Philippa Strum. ; Making Women Talk: The Interrogation of Palestinian Women Detainees by the Israeli General Security Services. . Theresa Thornhill. ; Keepers of the History: Women and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. . Elise G.

Torture and the Balance of Evils

This article explores the questions raised by the issuance of the Landau Commission Report: What is the legal and moral status of torture of terrorist suspects and others, when that torture is engaged in by the Investigation Unit of the General Security Service (GSS) of the State of Israel for the purpose of extracting information potentially saving many Israeli lives? More specifically, was the Commission right in itsretrospectiveconclusion that “the methods of interrogation … employed [in the past by the GSS] … are largely to be defended, both morally and legally …” (R., 4)? Was the Commission right in itsprospectiveconclusion that no new legislation is needed to deal with the methods of interrogation of the GSS because “the GSS can turn a new leaf … within the framework of the existing law …” (R., 82)?

Introduction

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).

Commission of Inquiry into the Methods of Investigation of the General Security Service Regarding Hostile Terrorist Activity

1.1 On 31 May 1987, The Government of Israel resolved:“That the matter of the GSS methods of interrogation regarding Hostile Terrorist Activity (HTA) is – in the wake of Criminal Appeal 124/87 (Nafsu) – a subject of vital public importance at this time which requires elucidation.”Therefore the Government decided:“To establish a Commission of Inquiry, in accordance with Sec. 1 of the Commissions of Inquiry Law, 1968, regarding the investigation methods and procedures of the GSS on HTA, and the giving of testimony in court in connection with these investigations.“The Commission will make recommendations and proposals, as it sees fit, also regarding the appropriate methods and procedures concerning these investigations in the future, while taking into account the unique needs of the struggle against Hostile Terrorist Activity.”

Coercion and the Judicial Ascertainment of Truth

The Commission of Inquiry into the Methods of Investigation of the General Security Service regarding Hostile Terrorist Activity dealt with the investigation methods which were practiced by the General Security Service (GSS) and which impinged on the rights of suspects.Suspects under interrogation have a number of rights: the right not to be physically or mentally injured or otherwise mistreated, the privilege against self-incrimination and a number of ancillary procedural rights, such as the right to consult a lawyer. The Commission concluded that the interests of combatting terrorism justify the suspension of these rights in whole or in part. It thought that the privilege against self-incrimination need not be accorded to terrorist suspects and, furthermore, that psychological and physical forms of pressure may be exerted on suspects in order to overcome their resistance to interrogation. The Commission accepted that a civilised criminal procedure has to reflect minimal standards of respect for the integrity of individuals. However, it found justification for the departure from normal procedures in an analogy to the doctrines of necessity and self-defence.

Not Actual “Necessity” But Possible “Justification”; Not “Moderate” Pressure, But Either “Unlimited” or “None At All”

1. It is not too late, even now, to welcome the appointment of the statutory commission of inquiry, headed by former President of the Supreme Court Moshe Landau, to examine the methods employed by the General Security Service (GSS) in investigating “hostile terrorist activity” (HTA). The Landau Commission Report treats a broad spectrum of subjects, and the ordinary reader, such as myself, must bear in mind that he encounters only the first part of the Report, while there is also a second, confidential part which doubtless comprises discussions, conclusions and recommendations that cast additional light upon the first part and make for its fuller understanding.Even Part One of the Report, with its references to Part Two, constitutes in and of itself a major contribution to the effort to crystallize clear legal models of conduct for the special governmental organs involved in the sensitive area of the investigation of HTA cases. Raising the subject on the public agenda, the revelation of the facts involved, and examination of the attendant problems by a commission of such standing constitute an important step toward finding appropriate solutions. Although the Commission's approach is open to dispute on some points, dispute precedes all progress, at least the dispute between the new course and its predecessor.

The Independent Judiciary in an Interest-Group Perspective

The Independent Judiciary in an Interest-Group Perspective