Thursday, May 13, 2004
Well, what about it?
That's all true, but it's also true that a great many of their accusations about Israeli abuse of Palestinian prisoners are real. Israel's own Supreme Court admitted as much in 1999, when it outlawed the "legal" torture of Palestinians under interrogation.
The Israeli court went to some trouble to outline the inadmissability of torture, even though it was highly likely that some prisoners might have information about planned terrorist activities that would save lives. Despite the court's ban on torture, debate on the issue continued.
If anything, the reaction to the decision seemed to make clear that most Israelis were still in favor of "physical force" in interrogations. In March 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak said he supported torture because when "ticking bombs" were at stake, "it is necessary to immediately save life from a concrete danger of a serious attack, and no other reasonable course exists to achieve this result."
Interesting, very interesting. I put my CCC away so I can't get anything from there, though I doubt they'd be very enthusiastic. I suppose, however, that this is one of those situations of the type that justifies state-sanctioned killing of prisoners, i.e., the death penalty. If the harm to society is known and great, and there are no other courses of conduct left open, the guilty may be harmed to protect the innocent. I'm not too comfortable with it though . . .
The Israeli court went to some trouble to outline the inadmissability of torture, even though it was highly likely that some prisoners might have information about planned terrorist activities that would save lives. Despite the court's ban on torture, debate on the issue continued.
If anything, the reaction to the decision seemed to make clear that most Israelis were still in favor of "physical force" in interrogations. In March 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak said he supported torture because when "ticking bombs" were at stake, "it is necessary to immediately save life from a concrete danger of a serious attack, and no other reasonable course exists to achieve this result."
Interesting, very interesting. I put my CCC away so I can't get anything from there, though I doubt they'd be very enthusiastic. I suppose, however, that this is one of those situations of the type that justifies state-sanctioned killing of prisoners, i.e., the death penalty. If the harm to society is known and great, and there are no other courses of conduct left open, the guilty may be harmed to protect the innocent. I'm not too comfortable with it though . . .
