Israel’s sham investigations cannot whitewash horrific abuse of Palestinian prisoners

Sde Teiman – Israel’s military detention and interrogation base for Palestinians from the Gaza Strip – has been repeatedly exposed as a horrific torture and abuse facility. Media reports, both international and domestic, have published testimony after testimony of shocking brutality by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian detainees – 36 of them have died while in Sde Teiman, according to Haaretz. In April an Israeli doctor at the medical facility attached to Sde Teiman wrote in a letter to the minister for defence and the attorney general that “we are all complicit in breaking the law”.
A few weeks ago, Israeli military police arrested a group of reserve soldiers suspected of “aggravated sodomy [of a Palestinian detainee], causing bodily harm under aggravated circumstances, abuse under aggravated circumstances and conduct unbecoming of a soldier”. Israeli politicians – including government ministers and members of parliament – were outraged.
Outraged not because of the moral gravity of the terrible crimes exposed – but because of the mere fact that soldiers were being questioned.
At this point, you might assume that there’s a chasm between the proper legal authorities in Israel, now pursuing accountability, and extreme politicians with a mob mentality in support of impunity even in a case such as the one currently making headlines. But the reality is much bleaker.
Over decades, the Israeli system perfected its ability to use brutal violence against Palestinians without having to pay a price for it. This is a critical matter: after all, it is impossible to oppress millions for decades without using violence on a horrifying scale. But it is also impossible to prosecute again and again those who exercise this violence, since who would agree to rule in this way if down the road he is denounced a criminal? And so, a point of equilibrium was configured, one which incorporates both “investigations” and impunity.
Phase one: receive complaints of possible crimes from anyone who wishes – Palestinians, NGOs, UN agencies. Phase two: go through the motions, produce paperwork, but don’t investigate seriously. While you’re at it, treat every case at most as an exceptional violation by some junior level. Never investigate the policy itself or senior levels. Phase three: take your time. Let public attention move on, let years pass. With time, almost no one will care about, say, a Palestinian teen who Israeli soldiers shot to death in his back somewhere near the separation fence. Phase four: case closed – but hey, Israel has “investigated”.
As part of this system, once every few years, some junior rank will be prosecuted – and a big deal will be made out of it. This happens when there’s solid video footage or forensic evidence which causes a scandal, international attention and expressions of astonishment. Think of Israeli border policeman Ben Deri in Beitunia (2014) or Sergeant Elor Azaria in Hebron (2016): in these two cases there was unequivocal video documentation. Each of them killed a Palestinian. Both were convicted. None of them served even a year in prison. But Israel demonstrated, for the world to see, how it investigated, how it took action. Now, all other cases can be forgotten and closed. This is how Israel managed to maintain a normative image while neutralising international legal risks.
And it is precisely this method that the entire political, military and legal elites in Israel refer to nowadays, when they repeat the mantra that “the investigations protect our soldiers”. Everyone seems to have parroted this line in recent months. If Israel “investigates” itself then that will pre-empt investigations by “those anti-Semites in The Hague”. So far, this charade has worked quite well. Think on the one hand about all the corpses, the torture, the demolished Palestinian homes and all the other crimes. On the other hand, think about the number of Israelis who have been prosecuted abroad so far. Tens of thousands on one side, zero on the other. It works.
But recently, this – finally – seems to have become untenable, both domestically and internationally. In Israel the political price of even sham investigations (and rare prosecutions) is becoming too high, for the public is refusing to stomach these – as meagre and paltry as they are.
Internationally, after years of repeated reports by human rights organisations, it has become increasingly difficult to deny Israel’s organised whitewashing. With the intertwined impact of an awakened international public opinion, Israel’s relinquishment of appearances, the scope of violence and its persistence, and now the legal risks from The Hague have become real. As such, these in turn caused even less political appetite in Israel to pursue domestic “investigations”.
If, despite all the efforts to make it look like domestic investigations are genuine, there are eventually arrest warrants issued in The Hague, then this is “evidence that contradicts the notion that our judicial system is the bulletproof vest against what is happening in international courts” – as clarified by the chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK Simcha Rothman, who spelled out the real value attributed to such legal procedures: instrumental.
Which brings us back to Sde Teiman – and The Hague.
The Sde Teiman investigation that exploded in recent weeks is only the tip of the iceberg. Down the road await not only further “investigations” in Israel of junior ranks – but, for a change, genuine investigations of the most senior ranks abroad. After all, the questions about Sde Teiman cannot but make their way up the chain of command. And the questions about Israel’s policy of using military force in Gaza, resulting in tens of thousands of Palestinian fatalities, will not be answered by lowly sergeants. And Israel’s criminal policy, saturated with war crimes in the West Bank – crimes which are, in essence, policy crimes, the result of decisions made by government after government – it too awaits international arrest warrants against senior officials.
These intersecting forces are the result of the belated head-on collision between the Israeli regime’s system of flagrant Jewish supremacy and reality. The reality of a non-normative state, one that is unable to neutralise international legal risks. Internal contradictions are collapsing under their own weight. For anyone believing in justice and accountability, this is good news – and motivation to press forward.
Hagai El-Ad is based in Jerusalem and is the former executive director of B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. He tweets at @HagaiElAd. A version of this was originally published in Ha’aretz.