As Torture Debate Heats Up, Jewish Groups Stay Mum
By Marc Perelman
The American Jewish Committee last week became the first, and to date only, mainstream Jewish group to give strong public backing to proposed legislation that would ban the use of torture by American military, intelligence and law-enforcement personnel.
On December 10, the AJCommittee’s board of governors passed a resolution expressly condemning the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. Two days later the group also sent a letter to all members of Congress, urging them to support legislation that would force CIA interrogators to follow the guidelines set forth by the Army’s field manual, which bans waterboarding, mock executions and other harsh methods.
Most other Jewish organizations with prominent advocacy efforts in Washington, however, have been noticeably absent from efforts to push through the anti-torture legislation and from the broader national debate about the alleged use of enhanced interrogation techniques by American security forces.
“There was a shocking silence of the Jewish community on the issue of torture, and there is still a lacuna on this vital issue, to my eye,” said Felice Gaer, director of the AJCommittee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights. “All Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish, need to be more vocal on this matter… Jews particularly know that torture is antithetical to everything in our tradition, ethics and outlook.”
The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress, long leading advocates for civil liberties, have not weighed in on the pending anti-torture legislation, nor has the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the umbrella body of Jewish communal organizations.
A spokeswoman for B’nai B’rith International, Sharon Bender, said the issue was not an immediate priority for the organization. The AJCongress did not return queries for comment.
The communal organizations most actively involved in efforts to ban the use of torture by American security forces have been those traditionally associated with more liberal causes. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the national coordinating body for community relations councils, has urged its members to call their senators to support the bill. Meanwhile, several progressive groups, including the Union for Reform Judaism, The Shalom Center and Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, have signed on to the National Religious Coalition Against Torture, an alliance of more than 140 groups.
In recent weeks, the issue of torture has been the subject of heated debate in Congress, particularly after revelations that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of its agents waterboarding two Al Qaeda operatives. Last Thursday the House approved the anti-torture legislation, but a day later, Senate Republicans blocked a vote on the same bill. The White House has indicated it would veto such legislation.
Last month, the issue of waterboarding nearly derailed the Senate confirmation of federal judge Michael Mukasey as attorney general. During his confirmation hearings, Mukasey repeatedly refused to state that waterboarding constituted torture. He promised senators that if nominated, he would review Justice Department memos before taking a stance on the issue. Last week, Mukasey said he had not yet finished that review.
Mukasey is Jewish, as is his chief supporter in the Senate, New York Democrat Charles Schumer. In the resolution that its board of governors adopted last week, the AJCommittee appears to suggest that one need only look back into Jewish history to draw a clear conclusion on the illegality of the harsh interrogation technique.
“We are concerned as to the current national discussion, which suggests that there is some question as to whether waterboarding is legal and whether it constitutes torture,” the AJCommittee states. “Waterboarding — an interrogation practice associated with the Spanish Inquisition and prosecuted under U.S. law as torture as much as a century ago — is unquestionably torture.”
A similar condemnation of the practice was offered last month by the AJCongress, which has otherwise mostly steered clear of the anti-torture debate. In a November 9 statement welcoming Mukasey’s appointment, AJCongress President Richard Gordon called “on the Congress to act with dispatch to unambiguously declare waterboarding illegal.”
In 2005, both the AJCommittee and the AJCongress threw their support behind an amendment, sponsored by Republican Senator John McCain, prohibiting the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. The Senate approved the bill by a large majority but the measure was effectively weakened by legislation adopted in 2006.
As the anti-terrorist measures adopted by the Bush administration come under increasing fire, Jewish groups have been scrambling to find the right balance between national security concerns and their traditional defense of human rights.
The executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, Rabbi Brian Walt, said that the reluctance of a large segment of the organized Jewish community to speak out against harsh interrogation techniques stems partly from the belief that torture may help to prevent terrorist attacks, as well as from concern that heightened scrutiny of American security forces’ methods could draw increased attention to Israel’s own interrogation practices.
“This is ironic,” he said, noting that Israel’s Supreme Court banned torture in 1999, “since Israel has a better record than the U.S. on this.”
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" 'This is ironic,' [Rabbi Brian Walt] said, noting that Israel's Supreme Court banned torture in 1999, 'since Israel has a better record than the U.S. on this.' " The good Rabbi just told a bald-faced lie (or else he is willfully ignorant). The Supreme Court of Israel functionally legalized torture in its 1999 ruling in The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel vs. The Government of Israel et al. As Norman Finkelstein has pointed in Beyond Chutzpah (p. 165), even pro-Israel torture advocate Alan Dershowitz, "himself acknowledged that it did not absolutely prohibit torture: '[T]he Supreme Court left open the possibility that a member of the security service who honestly believed that rough interrogation was the only means available to save lives in imminent danger could raise this defense.' " B'Tselem and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel have shown that the ruling did virtually nothing to impede the routine use of torture by agents of the Israeli government. Torture is and has long been routine in the Jewish state. According to the December, 2006, report of the United Against Torture Coalition to Combat Torture in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories: "Under Israeli criminal law, there is no specific offence of torture." Take a look also at "Report: High Court permits torture of Palestinians" in the 5/30/07 online edition of the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot.
None of the major national Jewish women's groups were queried for this story. The National Council of Jewish Women has issued a strong statement opposing abuse of power by the Executive Branch including torture.
"Jews particularly know that torture is antithetical to everything in our tradition, ethics and outlook," said Felicia Gaer. She is spot on with this comment. Indeed, we should stop piously referring to our Jewish ethics and outlook if we are continuously willing to violate them, not only by a complicit silence here, but by the roaring silence of the Jewish organizations regarding the routing use of torture in Israel. It may be "ahead" of us in terms of judicial rulings, but everyone knows that "the frog" and the "Palestinian hanging," etc, are widely used against the Palestinians, as reported by Btselem and the Committee Against Torture in Israel.
“This is ironic,” he said, noting that Israel’s Supreme Court banned torture in 1999, “since Israel has a better record than the U.S. on this.” Yes, and we banned torture long before that. Unfortunately, Israel has never stopped the use of torture, and apparently neither have we.
“This is ironic,” he said, noting that Israel’s Supreme Court banned torture in 1999, “since Israel has a better record than the U.S. on this.” Yes, and we banned torture long before that. Unfortunately, Israel has never stopped the use of torture, and apparently neither have we.
Who can be pro torture? But, it will always been conducted in times of war for intelligence, which is used to save lives. No law(s) will ever change that. Israel employs sophisticated psychological torture as does the CIA and other countries. Such are the realities in the subterrainian worlds that co-exist with us. I know this, if some one kiddanpped my child, and the authorities had strong evidence against those in custody, and life was a stake, I wouldn't be so quick to say, "Oy let's spare those mamzers' feelings least we twist it out of them and cause them pain." But, given certain realities Jewish support for or against things should be also informed by halachic opinion.
"Most other Jewish organizations with prominent advocacy efforts in Washington, however, have been noticeably absent from efforts to push through the anti-torture legislation and from the broader national debate about the alleged use of enhanced interrogation techniques by American security forces." Gosh, who'd a thought it!
A lot of Jews are ambivalent about the word "torture" because everybody knows that if Israel puts a hood over a terrorist's head and pours some water on it, while Syria puts a journalist's feet in a vise and crushes them to dust, then the human rights organizations, the Europeans and the people who call themselves peace activists are going to scream and curse and pass UN resolutions about those unspeakable Israelis and nobody will mention Syria. So it's easy to think, what's the use, it just gives Iran and Sudan (those shining paragons of human rights) another opportunity to bash America, and who really thinks the CIA is going to stop torturing people just because it's illegal? These are all valid points. But it's not OK to torture people and we need Congress to say that officially.
The reason why most Jewish Organizations are quiet on this issue is because Israel was/is the only country in the world that had/has legalized torture.
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