Human Rights Alert

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September 14, 2022

Israel

Torture of Israeli citizen by Israeli secret police to extract confessions for prosecution. The Israel Supreme Court upheld the confessions in September 2022.

Amiram Ben Uliel, 27.

Amiram Ben Uliel [center] at Supreme Court in March 2022.

Amiram Ben Uliel was arrested in wake of an arson attack on a home in the West Bank town of Duma in July 2015 in which three people were killed. In January 2016, Ben Uliel was indicted for murder and membership in a terrorist organization.

In May 2020, Ben Uliel was convicted of three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, three counts of arson and conspiring to commit a racially-motivated crime. He was sentenced to three life terms.

From the start of the detention, torture and isolation were used on dozens of suspects. For 21 days, none of the detainees were allowed to speak to a relative or attorney.

In June 2018, the Israeli district court in Lod confirmed that Ben Uliel had been tortured and ruled out several confessions that he had made to interrogators of the General Security Services. But the court allowed yet another confession by Ben Uliel, which served as the basis of his conviction.

The court also determined that an unidentified defendant, then a minor, was tortured. In May 2019, the suspect, now an adult, entered a plea bargain and eventually was sentenced to 42 months, 32 of which had already been served.

Methods of Torture

Both media accounts and defense attorneys have reported that the General Security Services used what was termed a “menu of torture” against Ben Uliel and other suspects, most of them minors. They included electric shocks, sexual harassment, beatings, groping by a female interrogator and the stretching and shrinking of detainees on what was called a Procustean bed. The torture was approved by the highest judicial authorities – the attorney general and later the Supreme Court, the latter which upheld the use of torture in obtaining confessions.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The detention and interrogation of Ben Uliel violated Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

The case also violated Articles 8-11, which guarantee an effective remedy for violations of fundamental rights, freedom from arbitrary detention, right to a fair trial and presumption of innocence.

In the words of defense attorney Avigdor Feldman, Ben Uliel underwent unprecedented torture by the General Security Services. Feldman, who in 1991 received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, said he read a GSS document to the Supreme Court that listed torture methods.

For the first time, I saw an organized listing of torture methods – how long each method was employed on the body of the one interrogated, how many times each procedure was repeated, and the various auxiliary aids that were designed to produce visceral pain. When I studied the document, which I was forbidden to copy or keep in my office, my hair stood on end. I understood that it was prepared by a brain trust of doctors, interrogators, psychologists, and apparently lawmakers, who used the tested and primitive methods whose purpose was to shatter the feeling of self of the one interrogated, to abandon him to the mercy of his interrogators.

Re-enactment of torture method by General Security Services.

What is needed?

Amiram Ben Uliel and anybody else under torture must be immediately released. Those who tortured the detainees must be prosecuted.

The General Security Services must come under strict scrutiny in how it conducts interrogations and treats detainees.

Israel must submit to international law regarding the complete ban on torture, open trials and transparency. The case of Amiram Ben Uliel has shown how the State of Israel is ready to disregard any legal safeguards to achieve political aims.

Call for Action

The most effective pressure for change stems from the U.S. Congress, which every year approves billions of dollars to Israel. Please call your member of Congress [https://www.congress.gov/sponsors-cosponsors/117th-congress/representatives/ALL] and tell him or her of the legal use of torture in Israel – and that you are concerned for your relatives in that country. Please ask your representative to look into the situation and sent him this factsheet.

Sources

Israel’s Slide to Dictatorship

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September 14, 2022

A Word First

What happens to a country when it slides toward dictatorship? The first thing to go is trust in the regime. That’s when things get scary, particularly during times of tension. In this edition, we present the example of Israel.

From On High

“For the first time, I saw an organized listing of torture methods – how long each method was employed on the body of the one interrogated, how many times each procedure was repeated, and the various auxiliary aids that were designed to produce visceral pain.”
Human rights attorney Avigdor Feldman describes the legal use of torture in Israel.

Re-enactment of torture by Israel’s secret police. [Otzma Yehudit]

Israel’s Slide to Dictatorship

Israel has never been a democracy. Its founder David Ben-Gurion ruled with an iron hand, suppressed dissent, broke strikes and used the army to block protests. He could count on his secret police, handpicked judiciary and servile media to defeat any opposition.

But Ben-Gurion was deterred from making the new Jewish entity into an open police state. He needed money from the West, particularly the United States, and parliament contained more than a few people willing to publicize the prime minister’s excesses.

Today, the Israeli leadership has few restraints. Washington provides billions of dollars in aid, much of it pocketed by the Israeli elite. Parliament has no power and the judiciary is sworn to regime survival. The mainstream media dare not challenge the government unless encouraged by Europe or the United States.

In September, Israel turned into an open police state. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a young Jewish man tortured for weeks by the secret police, formally the General Security Services. The court acknowledged that the defendant, Amiram Ben Uliel, underwent torture, or what was termed “special measures,” but said his subsequent confessions could be used as the basis of his conviction and three life sentences in connection with a deadly arson attack in the West Bank in 2015.

This makes Israel the only country in the world where torture is legal. The United States and European Union, which pressured Israel for convictions in the West Bank attack, were silent.

The Chile example

More than a few democracies have slid into dictatorship over the last century. Perhaps the best example was Chile, which, like Israel, allowed itself to become a playground of the superpowers. The Soviet Union and Cuba supported Chile’s unions and socialist politicians. The United States embraced the capitalist elite. In 1973, Washington engineered a military coup that toppled the socialist government of President Salvador Allende.

Israel has long been under Washington’s thumb. U.S. military aid of some $3.5 billion ensures the loyalty of Israel’s government, military, security services, academia, media — in other words everybody that counts. In 2021, Washington played a critical role in the formation of Israel’s minority government, backed by a Hamas-aligned Arab coalition.

Bereft of independence, the Israeli state follows orders. So, after a firebomb was hurled in the Palestinian village of Duma more than seven years ago, Washington demanded immediate arrests and convictions. U.S. officials also endorsed the claim of the Palestinians that Jews were behind the killing of three people.

The General Security Services went into action. It grabbed nearly 100 young Jews, most of them minors, and beat them senseless. Some were selected for torture. When no credible information emerged, the secret police and prosecutors forced suspects to change their confessions to match the evidence found in Duma.

Unprecedented brutality

Amiram Ben Uliel, then 21, underwent weeks of torture before he confessed. His attorney, Avigdor Feldman, who in 1991 received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, said he had never encountered the brutality as that endured by his client. The worst part was that GSS had formulated a torture policy to ensure confessions. The measures included electric shocks, sexual harassment, beatings, and what was called a Procrustean bed, a 21st Century version of the medieval rack. The torture was approved by the highest judicial authorities in Israel.

“For the first time, I saw an organized listing of torture methods — how long each method was employed on the body of the one interrogated, how many times each procedure was repeated, and the various auxiliary aids that were designed to produce visceral pain,” Feldman recalled. “When I studied the document, which I was forbidden to copy or keep in my office, my hair stood on end. I understood that it was prepared by a brain trust of doctors, interrogators, psychologists, and apparently lawmakers, who used the tested and primitive methods whose purpose was to shatter the feeling of self of the one interrogated, to abandon him to the mercy of his interrogators.”

In May 2020, an Israeli court threw out several of Ben-Uliel’s confessions under torture. But the court allowed the final confession, which served as the basis of his conviction of three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, three counts of arson and conspiracy to commit a racially-motivated crime. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court upheld all of Ben-Uliel’s confessions.

An apathetic citizenry

There were no protests in wake of the Supreme Court ruling. Israelis have become apathetic. Voter turnouts have declined, leading to failed coalitions and soon the fifth parliamentary elections in three years. The state-aligned newspapers, radio and television have been rejected for the social media. Religious observance — whether Judaism or Islam — is at an all-time high in opposition to the secular Jewish elite.

“Altogether, when voters think that there’s a wall between them and how politics gets done in the national capital, they tune themselves out to political happenings,” the U.S. nonprofit Renew Democracy Initiative said. “This is particularly dangerous, as this presents an opportunity for authoritarian-minded political leaders to start curtailing political rights for minority groups, if not the entire national population. This can then start a backslide into dictatorship when the democratic voice becomes permanently suppressed, eliminating any kind of recourse against undemocratic policies such as voter suppression or encroachments onto free speech.”

The distrust in Israel’s institutions has been expressed in other ways. Despite the threat by Iran and its proxies, the willingness of Israelis to serve in the military has dropped significantly. Young people are fleeing the country, many of them settling in Germany. The most popular politician is a 46-year-old attorney with a long police record who represents those deemed Jewish extremists.

On Sept. 11, GSS chief Ronen Bar warned of Israel’s political instability, saying this was encouraging the country’s enemies. He said the “deep rift” in Israeli society is the “most complex” challenge faced by his organization. He did not address the GSS policy of torture.

“The prevailing feeling among our adversaries is that our historical advantage, our national resilience, is fading,” Bar said. “This insight should trouble us more than anything else.”

UNRWA reaffirms its commitment to strict adherence to UN values in educating Palestine Refugees children

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September 13, 2022

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) takes seriously its responsibility to educate over half a million Palestine refugee girls and boys in strict adherence with UN humanitarian values. We have zero tolerance for hate speech and incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence.

UNRWA explicitly incorporates human rights education into its school curricula through its Human Rights, Conflict Resolution, and Tolerance (HRCRT) education. In 2021, UNRWA went further, launching a centralized, online learning platform where teaching materials, thoroughly vetted in a three-step process, are posted. The platform provides a safe, accessible, and centrally monitored system to access instructional materials customized across grade, subject, and host country.

A recently released report makes allegations regarding UNRWA educational materials purportedly used by the Agency in Gaza that do not comply with UN values. The materials in question are published on a non-UNRWA website.

We note the allegations in question originate with a detractor organization whose methodologies and goals were questioned in a rigorous 2021 academic review funded by the European Union. UNRWA takes every allegation seriously and is reviewing the contents of the report.

Danny Lewin H’yd: The very first victim of 9/11

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September 12, 2022

Danny Lewin first walked into Samson’s Gym in Jerusalem in 1985 accompanied by his best friend, Aviad, the son of Peace Now pioneer activist Janet Aviad. Despite Danny not yet being 15, came armed with a series of questions about Jerusalem’s legendary fitness facility, the first of its kind in Israel, and the much-talked-about new attraction in Israel’s capital. After asking about the equipment, the rates, the hours, and the type of workout program that he had hoped to get from one of the muscular instructors who seemed to epitomize the gym’s name, Danny asked a question that would seem haunting a decade and a half later. “Why are there no Arabs here and what are you afraid of?” His question seemed more a comment that stood to support the argument that would soon follow when his close friend brazenly challenged the gym’s unspoken policy………..to read more see link below:

Danny Lewin H’yd: The very first victim of 9/11

Palestinian Authority schoolbooks deny Holocaust, legitimize Munich massacre

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September 9, 2022

Children in the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA began their school year on Sept. 1, only instead of the promised education reforms, their schools continue to use the same books that have been heavily criticized for inciting hatred against Jews and Israel.

History books in PA and UNRWA schools laud and legitimize the tragedy, in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes, describing it as “resistance” to Zionism, and “Zionist interests abroad.”

It also showed that textbooks on World War II omit the Holocaust entirely. They cover the main events in detail, such as the German invasion of Poland, the Battle of Britain, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not a word about the Wannsee Conference, concentration camps, or any other events related to the Holocaust.

Surprisingly, the German government is the main funder of the Palestinian education system, including textbooks. The PA Education Ministry’s budget for the implementation of their plan comes from Germany, as well as Norway, Finland, and Ireland.

Palestinian children are taught to believe that Judaism is a racist religion and that Jews control the media, politics, and finances. Jews are depicted as liars, corrupt, and “enemies of Islam at all times and places,” and as such should be eliminated.

The German Embassy in Ramallah confirmed in a statement that the country “does support Palestinian education, but does not finance the development or printing of the textbooks. “We are in constant dialogue with the Palestinian side for further improvements in the education sector and the materials used in it,” the statement said.

COMMENT FROM DAVID BEDEIN:

58% OF THE UNRWA BUDGET IS ALLOCATED FOR EDUCATION, WHICH INCLUDES FEES FOR DEVELOPMENT AND PRINTING OF THE PA TEXTS FOR USE IN UNRWA SCHOOLS. GERMANY, AS THE LARGEST DONOR TO UNRWA EDUCATION, KNOWS THAT VERY WELL.

Unanswered questions about the Amiram ben Ulliel conviction

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September 8, 2022

Here in a concise manner, we list many of the unacceptable practices in the Duma arson conviction which was upheld recently on appeal to the Supreme Court::

The first days after the arson: Without any evidence, it was announced that the arson and murder in Kfar Duma were committed by “Jewish Terrorists”. Almost like a blood libel, there was nothing connecting the crime to Jews unless you wish to believe that Arabs cannot daub Hebrew graffiti when they wish to confuse the police and the people. But this has happened in previous arson cases.

Administrative Detention: Again without any evidence against them, a large number of those sporting large knitted kippahs and long sidelocks were arrested and tortured to coerce an admission and confession.

No Lawyers Allowed: For 21 days none of the arrested were allowed to speak to a relative or to a lawyer. Were they not innocent until proven guilty?

Pain, threats and Torture: The accused were treated as Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists are treated. They were finally released without an apology. They and those close to them are still suffering the trauma and scars of what they experienced.

In “Welcome to your GSS interrogation” – Netanel Furkowitz, brutally interrogated by the GSS for 12 days in connection with the Duma incident, has broken his silence and recorded his account of the horrific interrogations.

False Video: When much of the public became aware that the Shin Bet (Shabak, ISA) was using illegal means to coerce confessions, the Shabak felt duty-bound to prove that their methods were justified for security reasons. The result was a doctored video production “The Wedding of Hate”. This faked video was so successful, that it proved, in Caroline Glick’s words: “that the whole community supported and even celebrated the murder of the Dawabshe family”.

Former Defense Minister Moshe (“We know who did it”) Ya’alon testified that “The prime minister brought a video of the wedding to the cabinet. At this point, some cabinet members still did not believe that Jews could commit murder in the Duma case. They were not prepared to say ‘Jewish terrorism. After seeing the video, they realized that there was a broader problem here.”

Ticking Bomb Lie: The permission obtained to torture Amiram Ben Uliel during GSS interrogations was obtained through lies and deception. The GSS and the Justice Ministry personnel knowingly lied when they claimed that Ben Uliel constituted a “ticking time-bomb threat”. The brutal torture suffered by Ben Uliel was therefore illegal.

The Deceitful Reenactment: The official video that “convinced” the judges of Amiram’s guilt, describes how Ben Uliel was forced to repeat his confession and reenact the crime after the head of the GSS interrogation team, known as “Miguel”, threatened him: “I have the means and I know how to use them”.

According to police regulations, a reenactment must be led by an officer who is not a member of the team investigating the case and does not know the details of the investigation. This is to ensure that the reenactment will be free of all influences from anyone who could give clues to the defendant being investigated. The defendant must lead everything from start to finish, but in the Duma case, apparently, there were other rules.

In the Duma arson reenactment, this regulation was violated twice. First, the officer who led the reenactment and walked hand in hand with Ben Uliel the entire time was Chief Superintendent Erez Amouyal, who was at the head of the Israeli Police investigation team in the Duma case.

The regulation was violated a second time by the presence of Miguel during the entire reenactment. Miguel was very involved with the investigation and the case. As far as Ben Uliel is concerned, one word from Miguel could bring him back to the interrogation room in which he was tortured.

A video of the reenactment begins with Ben Uliel sitting in a police Jeep on the way to Kfar Duma. Amouyal is sitting next to Ben Uliel and tries to get him to start talking. However, an uncooperative Ben Uliel answers, “I have no idea where we are going.” At this point, Miguel interrupts: “As we discussed, Amiram. Where would you like to go? What we discussed. Nothing has changed.”

Following this warning, 18 critical minutes are missing from the video after which Amiram cooperated fully and repeats his confession verbatim. What did they do or say to make him more cooperative? Did they give him the information which the justices said he could not have known?

Identifying the scene of the crime is a critical part of the reenactment, but Amouyal and Miguel prevented Ben Uliel from leading them to it. After the Jeep entered Kfar Duma, Ben Uliel asked to get out and lead them to the scene of the arson. “Could we walk?” he asked, and Amouyal answered him, “What’s that? Ahhh, we could, but right now we’d prefer not to. When we get closer.” Miguel added, “It’s [because of] the army.”

It seems apparent that Amouyal and Miguel were not pleased with Ben Uliel’s “identification” of the crime scene and understood that he was about to bring them to the wrong site, and insisted on not letting him out of the Jeep until they were very close to the site of the arson.

The judges chose to ignore this flagrant abuse of the judicial system.

Judge Shopping: The court announced that Justice Neal Hendel, who is critical of accepting confessions collected by improper means, was removed from the panel and was replaced. The three previous judges that found him guilty were known for their views..

All Positive Evidence Rejected: Any evidence that proved Ben Uliel’s innocence was summarily dismissed. It included his alibi, all witnesses who observed the crime and stated that at least two people were involved, the qualified graphologist who stated that the graffiti was not done by Amiram and in fact was the work of two persons, and that two cars were involved in the getaway.

The obsession to find Jewish settlers or a Jew guilty acted to protect the actual guilty parties. Logic tells us that the crime was the work of a Dawabsheh family member, just one of a list of similar arson attacks—-before and after the one that was highlighted as a Jewish crime. And the infamous Avishai Raviv, the planted provocateur, gives rise to another possible horrific scenario.

Unbelievable? One of the strongest reasons for doubt is the speed at which “Jewish” terrorists were accused. It seems the long awaited chance to implement what, during the years 1994-95 a committee, under the direction of then-Attorney General, Michael ben Yair, designed “Special Law Enforcement Rules for the Settlers in the Territories.”

“There is no doubt” of Ben-Uliel’s guilt,” the judges wrote in their decision .If so, we ask, why were so many loopholes and why so many unacceptable practices necessary to convict him?

Report: UN refugee agency accepted $50 million from US-designated terrorist group

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September 8, 2022

The Union of Good is a Saudi Arabia-based umbrella organization consisting of more than 50 Islamic charities and funds. It is designated by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group, which allows the United States to block the assets of foreign individuals and entities that commit, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism.

The international nonprofit Israel-education organization StandWithUs recently uncovered that member charities of the Union of Good fundraising organization, designated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2008 for supporting terrorism, have channeled the money to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Since 2012, the UNHCR has accepted approximately $49 million from the Qatar Charity, along with another $4.75 million from the Eid Charity over the last two years. Eid Charity founder Abdul Rahman Al Nuaimi has been designated as a terrorist by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the U.N. Security Council for his support of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen.

“While such money has seemingly been used to help refugees, a humanitarian institution accepting funds from groups tied to terrorism is deeply disturbing,” writes StandWithUs director of policy education Jordan Cope. “The U.N. and the UNHCR are exposing themselves to dangerous influences and potentially legitimizing an internationally-recognized terrorist organization.”

According to Treasury, “the Union of Good’s executive leadership and board of directors includes Hamas leaders, Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), and other terrorist supporters.” Treasury claims that the Union of Good has brokered several organizations and charities previously designated as terrorist entities for providing support to Hamas and Hamas-affiliated organizations in Judea and Samaria and Gaza.

‘Investigate failure to vet donors’

“The United Nations was founded to put an end to the scourge of war and protect fundamental human rights. The High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, must ensure that his agency upholds these values,” Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an independent human rights organization based in Geneva, told JNS.

One of the Union of Good’s founding members, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, has been banned from entering the United States, France and the United Kingdom.

Union of Good board member Abd al-Majid al-Zindani is also a U.S.-designated terrorist, supportive of Hamas and Al-Qaeda.

“We call on Mr. Grandi to clarify whether the U.N. Refugee Agency has taken any money from groups that fund radical Islamist ideology or even directly support terrorism. If so, he should apologize to victims of terrorism for legitimizing these groups, investigate the failure to vet such donors and ensure that processes are in place to prevent this from ever happening again,” insisted Neuer.

The report shows open praise by UNHCR leadership for the Qatar Charity, an affiliate of the Union of Good, which is banned by multiple Middle Eastern countries for financially supporting the Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organizations in the Gaza Strip.

“The context is that Qatar gave safe haven to the Taliban leadership and helped them take over Afghanistan, and has given billions of dollars to Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and armed Islamists throughout the region,” said Neuer. “UNHCR cannot claim to be a humanitarian agency if it legitimizes Qatar-controlled groups that fuel extremism and terror.”

Totalitarian control of democracy

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September 8, 2022

Totalitarian control of democracy

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Conviction of Jew for murder of Palestinians could be wrongful – opinion

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September 7, 2022

Are Israelis willing to deal with the implications of a contradiction-laden criminal case and demand that the justice system conduct a serious self-interrogation, essentially putting itself on trial?

Because of the many contradictions, listed below, it is difficult for much of the public to trust the verdict in the Amiram Ben-Uliel trial; he was found guilty of setting fire to a house in the Palestinian Arab town of Duma in 2015, causing the deaths of three members of one family and leaving a four-year-old boy orphaned and badly burned.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected the latest appeal submitted by attorney Avigdor Feldman on behalf of Ben-Uliel, bringing him back into the news.

The Israeli public consistently stands against violence and terror, and if the terrorist is a Jew, that position does not change. If that is not clear to all, then just consider the overwhelmingly agonized reactions when the brutal murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir by Jews came to light. The reaction to the disclosure of the Duma arson was similarly immediate: shock and horror.

Given the verdict, it makes sense that news reports refer to Ben-Uliel as a murderer and terrorist. However, when the story first broke, articles pointed out the possibility that, in spite of how it looked at first, because of the Hebrew graffiti on the wall, it was possibly not a Jewish crime. Therefore, contradictions that have not been sufficiently addressed render much of the public wary of fully trusting the outcome of the case.

Before listing the contradictions, none of which are being raised in the media at present, it is important to discuss the use of torture – enhanced interrogation – to produce the confessions upon which the conviction was based.

Feldman, a human rights lawyer who generally represents anti-Israel activists, took on this case of an ultra-Orthodox “hilltop youth” — nationlists who establish illegal outposts in Judea and Samaria — because of his concern with the use of torture in obtaining confessions. He was not trying to prove Ben-Uliel innocent but, rather, attempting to vacate the confessions. He lost.

Ben-Uliel maintained his silence for 17 days before the torture began. He had not seen a lawyer. On the 21st day, his captors would have been required to let him see legal counsel and they began the use of “enhanced interrogation” in these last few days. Finally, they got their confession.

The confessions obtained immediately after the torture were tossed out of court, but the law accepts confessions obtained over 36 hours after the torture ceases, with the rationale that the torture no longer affects the accused and the confession is then voluntary and not forced.

I, in fact, was once questioned under caution because of a lie someone had told about me, and, while I knew that I had done nothing wrong, I shook throughout the interrogation and was not sure the police officer would believe me until I walked out of the station.

It is safe to say that torture is traumatic, especially for a 21-year-old man who had never been arrested before. To have spent 17 days under arrest, cut off from the rest of the world, undergoing repeated interrogations with officers who were convinced of his guilt, was already traumatic. Add to that the torture, descriptions of which Feldman said he found difficult to read. The impact of that experience does not dissipate in 36 hours and perhaps not even in 36 weeks or 36 months, especially when these later confessions were given within the same environment and to the same people who had tortured him.

Why was a confession needed?

In Israel, enhanced interrogation is allowed only when an individual is deemed to be a “ticking bomb,” meaning that intelligence information has shown that this individual is part of a terrorist organization planning an imminent attack. But Ben-Uliel was deemed by the court not to be a member of a terrorist organization, and he certainly could not carry out an attack while in prison. This means that the only reason for the enhanced interrogation, in his case, was to force a man stubbornly sticking to his claims of innocence to say what they needed him to say.

Why did they need Ben-Uliel to confess? There was international pressure to find a culprit for this crime. Given the Hebrew graffiti, it was accepted that the perpetrator must be a Jew. Months later, with growing frustration at the lack of progress, Ben-Uliel and two minors were arrested. It has never been made clear what led to the arrest of these particular three people. But they had to be found guilty. It was important to show that Israel prosecutes Jewish murderers of Palestinian Arabs and not just Palestinian Arab terrorists.

In the end, one of the minors was found guilty of helping Ben-Uliel plan the attack and Uliel was found guilty of carrying it out. Shortly after their arrests, however, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon both said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.

But the fact that Ben-Uliel and his alleged accomplice were ultra-Orthodox hilltop youth — a group vilified by the elite leftist members of the Israeli population and leadership — may have made it appear the conviction would go unchallenged by the public. And this is true to some extent.

Were the court to have decided, in this latest appeal, that all confessions obtained through torture are inadmissible, the case would need to be retried. And given the contradictions listed below, a retrial would possibly exonerate Ben-Uliel.

Should that happen, the public would be exposed to a serious miscarriage of justice and the search for the real perpetrators of murder would have to be resumed in the now-cold case. It could result in suits being filed against those involved in the original interrogations and trial, not to mention an explosion of wrongful conviction cases added to the 21 out of 28 convictions retried since the establishment of the State of Israel that were found to be wrongful. Perhaps these are the reasons behind the latest rejection of the appeal.

On the other hand, if Ben-Uliel were to be found guilty in a more transparent re-trial, faith in the justice system would be restored and we could sleep well at night knowing that the man in jail really is guilty.

Will Israelis demand answers?

Look at the inconsistencies and contradictions reported in the media when the case broke and see what you think might be the truth. And remember – these are not necessarily facts but pieces of potential evidence that should be brought to a trial and substantiated or refuted under oath. Then we could say that justice has been done.

– There were several cases of arson in Duma before and after this particular one. It was common knowledge that arson was committed among the Palestinian Arab inter-clan conflicts rampant during that time.

– Initial eyewitness reports claimed there were either two or four arsonists and that they got away by car. Ben-Uliel was accused of working alone and being on foot.

– His wife said he was with her all night and his voice could be heard when a friend called at night – neither the wife nor the friend was called in to give statements. He could not have gone out after the phone call because from 5 a.m. he was looking after his daughter and would not have had time to commit the crime and get back home in time.

– The houses torched were deep in the town and not the more easily targeted buildings at the edge. How did he get into town, commit the crime, write two graffiti messages on walls — and get away without having been caught? And why did he not have anyone with him in case he was in danger? Analyst Martin Sherman of the Israel Institute of Strategic Students questions how a militarily untrained young man could have had the ability to carry out the attack on his own.

– An expert graphologist determined that the two graffiti messages, one of which was a specifically Chabad-type message rather than a nationalist one, were written by two different people and that Ben-Uliel was not one of them. Furthermore, Ben Uliel is not affiliated with the Chabad Movement. The writing style also suggested Arab calligraphy.

– The house of Ibrahim Dawabsha, a key witness for the defense, was set on fire, and it was believed to be in retaliation for his evidence that more than one person was involved in the crime.

Will people demand a search for the truth? Or will complacency leave questions unanswered and a young man condemned for a life in prison for what can, perhaps, be considered a trial of political expediency and one that had international import?

MK Rothman Threatens Million Shekel Defamation Suit Against JPost

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September 7, 2022

MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism) on Sunday morning sent a warning letter before a defamation lawsuit to the Jerusalem Post before for one million shekels ($300,000) over an editorial that was published on the newspaper’s website titled: “Simcha Rothman’s support of Jewish terrorist crosses a dangerous line.”

Last Thursday I reported (Ignoring Shin Bet Torture, Supreme Court Rejects Amiram Ben-Uliel’s Appeal) that the Supreme Court rejected the appeal of Amiram Ben-Uliel who was convicted of murdering three members of the Dawabsheh family in Duma Village in 2015. Ben-Uliel was convicted in 2020 and sentenced to three life sentences plus 17 years, following which he appealed the conviction on the grounds that his confession had been obtained illegally. The district court threw out two of Ben-Uliel’s confessions because they were given under torture, but accepted a third confession which served as a key piece of evidence against him in his trial.

The district court claimed that since the third confession was given several days after the two torture-driven confessions, and was as rife with details as the first two, it should be accepted. In other words, the district court suggested that Ben-Uliel, already a marginal personality, had two whole days to recover from being tortured in the Shin Bet dungeons and therefore no longer feared that violence would be used against him.

Needless to say, torture victims spend a lifetime trying to recover from their trauma, but the court would hear none of that.

MK Rothman tweeted in response: “This week’s Torah portion reads (Deut. 16:20): ‘Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that your God is giving you.’ The pursuit of justice must also be through justice, and a judicial system that as part of the process allows torture, lies, deception, and breaking the rules, does not pursue justice. It is a sad day for the State of Israel.”

Referring to another grotesque feature of the district court’s decision, ignoring that Ben-Uliel’s torture was justified by AG Yehuda Weinstein based on the doctrine allowing the torture of a suspect who is considered a ticking bomb – in an interrogation that took place half a year after the Dumka village arson, Rothman wrote: “We have no idea how much the investigation was contaminated by the enthusiastic Shin Bet interrogators, who carried out a ‘necessary investigation’ that was needless.”

Rothman concluded: “I don’t know if Amiram Ben-Uliel committed the murder in Duma or not. I know that a judicial system that confirms a confession given after torture does not deserve the name ‘judicial system.’”

“Sometimes, dangers to human rights and democracy become more serious from seeming moderates who try to sneak extremist views into the mainstream,” the JPost editorial read Sunday morning. “Religious Zionist MK Simcha Rothman may have just crossed this line when he seemed to support convicted Jewish terrorist Amiram Ben Uliel.”

“Before he could have read the court’s full opinion, MK Itamar Ben Gvir accused the court and the judiciary of being, disconnected, supporting a certain agenda, and of harboring ‘hatred,’” the editorial continued, noting: “These statements are not surprising from Ben Gvir, who has yet to find a Jew – convicted of harming Palestinians – who he does insist is innocent or misunderstood. … But Rothman knows better.”

“The rule of law is the bedrock of democracy, and Rothman knows this,” argues the JPost. “When Rothman is questioning the future of Israel’s justice system, he knows perfectly well that the bedrock of any democracy is the rule of law.”

The above is nothing short of a brutish attack on freedom of expression in Israel, suggesting that anyone who condemns a grotesquely corrupt decision of the courts, district, or supreme, is threatening the foundations of democracy.

In his warning letter to the JPost, Rothman’s attorney states that, needless to say, the above statements are complete lies, and there’s nothing between them and the actual statements made by MK Rotman.

These attacks on the burgeoning Religious Zionist party will continue as it becomes clear that more and more right-wing voters trust the Smotrich-Ben Gvir alliance more than they do Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Indeed, the RZ climb to around 12 mandates on average coincides with the Likud’s dropping one or two mandates.

As Rothman put it Sunday: “It is not clear to me why the Jerusalem Post decided to attack me with lies and slanders. Apparently the election period and the desire of the newspaper’s editors to influence the election results and act against me made them lose their minds.”

The JPost also uses the whataboutism tactics against Rothman, arguing: “If Rothman was ready to criticize all enhanced interrogation like the Public Committee Against Torture – including against Palestinians – this would be a defensible position. But he would never do this. According to Rothman, a Jew accused of violence is innocent even after conviction and after all, appeals are exhausted, but for Palestinians it is different.”

OK, this alone is a huge ground for a defamation lawsuit, and it’s followed brazenly by: “Rothman’s statement does not promote a fight against torture in the State of Israel, rather, it is a back door to legitimizing extremist Jewish violence against innocent Palestinians.”

But, you know, the Supreme Court’s despicable ruling has created a blessed coalition of right- and left-wing groups in Israel, united behind one crucial principle: thou shalt not torture. I, for one, have a dream that in my lifetime and his, I shall merit to see former AG Yehuda Weinstein taken in chains to face justice over his allowing the frustrated Shin Bet to torture the Jewish Duma suspects using the ticking bomb without any legal foundation. He should go to jail for that. And the same goes for anyone in Israel’s legal system who condones torture. As we’ve learned over the years from professional interrogators, torture just doesn’t work. Torture victims provide the answers they believe their tormentors want, period.

But if Mossi Raz from Meretz and Simcha Rothman from Religious Zionism can unite over their abhorrence to torture by our law enforcement agencies, then my trust in Israel’s politicians is higher than in its judges.

Shame on the Supreme Court and Shame on the Jerusalem Post.

Israel Behind the News

Human Rights Alert

Israel’s Slide to Dictatorship

A Word First

From On High

Israel’s Slide to Dictatorship

UNRWA reaffirms its commitment to strict adherence to UN values in educating Palestine Refugees children

Danny Lewin H’yd: The very first victim of 9/11

Palestinian Authority schoolbooks deny Holocaust, legitimize Munich massacre

Unanswered questions about the Amiram ben Ulliel conviction

Report: UN refugee agency accepted $50 million from US-designated terrorist group

Totalitarian control of democracy

Conviction of Jew for murder of Palestinians could be wrongful – opinion

Why was a confession needed?

Will Israelis demand answers?

MK Rothman Threatens Million Shekel Defamation Suit Against JPost

Column from the Director