Friday, March 6, 1998
Details from an original report by Tracy Wilkinson Los Angeles Times
Human rights and legal experts strongly condemned a recent Israeli Supreme Court decision permitting "Arabic non-citizens" to be held as "bargaining chips" for use in securing the freedom of Israeli prisoners of war. The high court admitted that imprisoning Lebanese guerrillas and other Arabs, many of whom have not been tried or have served their sentences, is a "painful" violation of human rights. But Israel's security concerns and the desire to retrieve missing or captured Israeli soldiers outweigh the abuse of human rights according to the court.
"The high court has legalized hostage-taking,"said Elizabeth Hodgkin, a senior analyst with Amnesty International in Tel Aviv. "This is a terrible decision. . . . If an armed group takes hostages, it is universally condemned. And now it's OK for a state to behave like an armed group? It's OK for a state to hold hostages?"
Although the kidnapping and imprisonment of suspected Arab militants has been known for years and denounced by human rights organizations, the court's ruling was the first official admission of the practice. The use of these hostages for the purpose of negotiating leverage had never been so explicitly stated, legal experts said.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by attorneys representing 10 Lebanese who have been held for up to 11 years in Israeli prisons. These hostages are part of a larger group of at least 21 Arabs represented by lawyer Zvi Rish. These men were abducted by Israeli commandos and were not allowed access to attorneys until recently.
The lawsuit petitioned for release of the 10 men, who were identified as members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah . The court denied the request, saying the release would "cause real harm to national security" and "fatally damage" efforts to free Israeli POWs.
Supreme Court President Aharon Barak agreed that the continued detention is a serious offense to human rights. But, he wrote, "this damage--grave and painful as it may be--is forced by the reality of security and of state. It reflects the appropriate point of balance . . . between the individual liberty and the need to protect the security of the state."
The court's ruling fuels a wider controversy over Israel's treatment of prisoners, which has been attacked by human rights organizations as including torture. Israeli law allows administrative detentions, under which suspects can be held without trial or charges being filed and for an indefinite period. Several hundred Palestinians are under administrative detention according to human rights activists and opposition politicians .
Israel defends its violations of prisoners' human rights by arguing that torture and kidnapping are justified if these measures prevented a greater evil. The argument has been used since 1996, when the Supreme Court approved the use of "moderate physical pressure" in the interrogation of prisoners.
Human rights groups deplored that ruling as condoning torture in violation of international treaties and civilized norms. They condemned the Supreme Court's open admission that militants like Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid are not being held for what they did but rather as bargaining chips.
In 1989 the Israelis abducted Sheik Obeid, a Hezbollah cleric based in Lebanon. Obeid was seized in a predawn raid on his home in Lebanon and has been held ever since in what lawyers described as virtual isolation in an Israeli prison. He is part of the group being represented by the lawyer Rish.
Obeid, in a rare newspaper interview, said that he opposed hostage-taking and willingly made a public appeal for Arad to be released. "I believe it to be inhumane to hold people hostage," he said. "It is a mistake to hold me hostage as well."
"This is an immoral decision," said Dan Yakir, an attorney with the Israeli Assn. for Human Rights. "A democratic state cannot employ means like capturing hostages. In the past, security concerns were used to trump basic civic liberties, but I cannot recall a decision that so fundamentally did so."
Leftist Meretz Party spokesman Dedi Zucker, a member of the Israeli parliament's constitution and law committee, is an outspoken opponent of the government's detention policies. Zucker, who regularly visits prisoners being held without trial, said he might see justification for a limited use of hostages as bargaining chips if the goals were specific and the time limited. But Obeid and the other Lebanese have been held for years. "The overall picture is quite depressing," Zucker said. "Some of [the detainees] are not angels. But that's why we have things called trials and judges and courts and prisons."
Return to Primary Index