2020 - Torture Has No Place in a Jewish State
Chananya Weissman
Written in October 2020, posted March 7, 2022

Note: In October of 2020 I wrote the following article. At the time I still believed there was a vestige of integrity in Jewish media outlets, and submitted it to a couple of them.  One ignored me and the other turned it down because, in their words, it was merely "a sermon on morality".  (Just for fun, I checked out their site as I'm writing this, and today they published a piece with the tagline "Israel must take a moral stand against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.")

Today at 4 PM Israel time will be a special bonus episode of my Root and Branch Medical War Crimes seminar with guest David Waldman, PR Director Honenu National Legal Help.  We will be discussing the Kfar Duma Arson Case in 2015, in which the Israeli deep state tortured a confession out of a young Jewish man, and disregarded powerful evidence that he was innocent of the charges.  The conviction is up for appeal, and David will give us the latest information. 

This is a fitting time to finally share this article, which will hopefully resonate even more strongly in light of the spreading tyranny that threatens every segment of society.

Torture Has No Place in a Jewish State

If ever I write something that should be considered uncontroversial, this should be it. If you disagree with me on everything else, you should agree with me here.

Torture has no place in a Jewish state.

I don't care if it is an Arab or a Jew.

I don't care if it is a known terrorist, a suspected terrorist, or a ticking time bomb.

I don't care if it is a minor or an adult.

I don't care how many lives the security agencies think they will save.

I don't care how badly they or their political bosses need to extract a confession to show they solved a crime.

And I don't care what you call it. Governments around the world have invented a slew of euphemisms to make the horrific sound acceptable. It isn't. It's horrific.

A Jewish state should not have dungeons where people are brought and tortured to extract information, coerce confessions, or simply intimidate them into submission.

A Jewish state should not have state-sanctioned, court-approved sadists who are paid to mentally and physically break people.

A Jewish state should not allow people to be arrested and incarcerated indefinitely in barbaric conditions without being charged with a crime, shown the evidence against them, or given any reasonable recourse.

A Jewish state should not allow people to be dehumanized and their entire families put through hell, because someone in authority signed an order.

We did not survive two thousand years of exile for this. We did not endure legalized brutality in every corner of the earth to learn how it's done and bring it back with us.

I am not a bleeding heart or a pacifist. I have no pity on Israel's enemies, and wouldn't trade one drop of Jewish blood for political favors or world approval. I believe we should ruthlessly defeat our enemies and show them what a holy war really is. Let them hate us if they wish, but let them respect us, and let them fear us. Let them crawl to us begging for peace, and if not, we'll hit them even harder.

We kill when we must in times of war, but we do not torture people. We respect the basic humanity even of those we must fight. We do not defile their bodies and behave like monsters, cold to their suffering or even enjoying it. That is what they do. That is not what Jews do.

When Jews behave like they are supposed to, God will help them win without need for sadism. That is a historical fact and remains true today.

The people of Israel love to disagree with one another. This is one issue on which there should be complete unity, from every part of the religious, political, and social spectrum. We must demand, together, that the dungeons close and the torture stops.

No more forced or coerced confessions. No more brutal interrogations. No more beatings of prisoners, no more sleepless nights, no more psychological torture, no more sadism.

No more excuses.

If you agree that torture has no place in Israel, please share this and help make it clear to those who have power and those who wish to be entrusted with power that this is now a deal-breaker.

The light unto the nations will no longer torture people in dark places.

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