Israel’s ambassador designate to Denmark has put his foreign ministry in a painful position by defending his country’s use of torture, and top Israeli officials are worried that similar diplomatic scandals could follow.
In contrast with the usual reception given to top diplomats, Carmi Gillon, a career employee with Israel’s internal security agency Shin Bet, has been threatened with immediate arrest if he sets foot in the northern European country.
Danish Justice Minister Frank Jensen said last week that Denmark must arrest Gillon to fulfill Denmark’s commitment to the United Nations to arrest people responsible for torturing prisoners.
Although Jensen later offered his opinion that the confessed former torture mastermind would be allowed diplomatic immunity, the damage had already been done.
Under Gillon's leadership in the mid-1990s, Shin Bet agents tortured hundreds of Palestinian detainees, according to B'Tselem, Israel's leading human rights organization, cited in a July 29 Washington Post report. In the same vein, according to Amnesty International, Israel arrested more than 8,000 Palestinians and routinely subjected them to torture in the period 1993-1998.
The ambassador designate, who left Shin Bet in 1996 after serving as its chief, told a Danish television reporter that his agency routinely used "moderate physical pressure" -- Israel's euphemism for torture -- on Arab prisoners under detention.
According to the Post, the practice was outlawed by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999, but Gillon told the Danish reporter it might have to be reinstated to prevent imminent “terrorist attacks” and save Israeli lives.
"You must understand that the method was used only against Islamic fundamentalists who refused to volunteer information, especially on suicide bombers," he was quoted as saying in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper. "It was part of fighting terrorism."
Terrorism is on the lips of many people in Europe these days, but less in association with Islamists than with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The Gillon scandal takes place against the backdrop of a Belgian criminal case which opened this month against Sharon, who as defense minister in 1982 was found by an official Israeli commission to be indirectly responsible for the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
In this context, and given that over 100 children are among the 523 Palestinians reportedly killed by Israeli troops in recent months, Gillon’s appointment has sparked Danish outrage. Human rights groups and the local press alike have condemned the Israeli ambassador designate.
Many Israelis say the case is evidence of unspoken anti-Semitism, or international bias in favor of the Palestinians, particularly in Western Europe. Ironically, Denmark established a record of trying to help Jews during the Holocaust, and subsequently played a role as one of the most pro-Israeli countries in Europe, according to the Washington Post report.
The fear among Israeli officers is that if this type of scandal could occur in Denmark and Belgium, other cases might be in the offing.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry, according to Haaretz newspaper, last week warned that prominent army and security officers, past and present, could be subject to prosecution in certain countries, especially Belgium, Britain and Spain.
Meanwhile, a July 31 report by Reuters indicates that Gillon’s tool of the trade is alive and well in Israel, at least for recreational purposes.
The article recounts how Israeli soldiers recently pulled over Khaled Rawashdeh’s taxi on the Samou'-Hebron road in the West Bank.
A dozen soldiers then beat Rawashdeh and eight other Palestinians for two hours, the taxi driver said, according to a complaint he filed with a human rights group, said the report.
"We were nine men standing in a line...and the soldiers continued beating us as if they were playing a game," Rawashdeh reportedly told Israel's B'Tselem organisation, which has investigated numerous reports of brutality since the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation erupted in September.
"I saw one of the soldiers run from his position, six meters (20 feet) away, and kick one of the men in the stomach," Rawashdeh told the agency two days after being released from hospital. "They also threw stones at us and beat us with their hands and their gun butts."
Whether or not Gillion’s ambassadorial credentials are rejected by the Danes, his favored techniques have clearly “trickled down” to other arms of the Israeli security forces, ensuring him of a legacy in the human rights – if not the diplomatic – field – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
