Alan Dershowitz on Torture in Israel

Known for his support for the creation of "torture warrants" that would allow the state to torture suspects to get information, Alan Dershowitz recently claimed that the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) admitted to him that there was no longer any torture in Israel for them to investigate, but they were keeping the name because it attracts media attention.

Regan Boychuk writes for Zmag on efforts to verify Derschowitz's claims:

First, I visited PCATI's website (www.stoptorture.org.il) and immediately found its July 2003 report containing 48 affidavits testifying to the continued use of torture against Palestinians by Israeli authorities. More than three years after Professor Dershowitz claims torture had stopped, PCATI reported: “Each month, the ill-treatment reaching the level of torture as defined in international law is inflicted in dozens of cases, and possibly more. In other words – torture in Israel has once more become routine.”

[N]ext, I contacted PCATI to confirm his allegation. “Dershowitz’s claim that he had long conversations with PCATI and that we reported that there is no longer any torture in Israel,” I was told by PCATI’s Orah Maggen, “is totally false. ... Ms. Maggen replied that it is true that there was a heated exchange with others present, but “All other statements made by Professor Dershowitz are blatantly false and utterly preposterous… Neither I nor any other representative of PCATI acknowledged, claimed or in any way stated that torture is no longer a significant issue. On the contrary, it is our claim that the systematic and large-scale torture and ill treatment of Palestinian detainees and prisoners continues to this day.”

You should follow the link to find out everything which Boychuk did to check up on the claim and what all the facts really are. Maggen merely concludes that Derschowitz's claim is "shocking in its audacity," but that strikes me as rather mild. Unless Derschowitz's recollection is really so poor that he can remember a completely different conversation than the one which actually occurred (and we can't exclude that possibility), then it really does sound like he's lying. Either way, though, Derschowitz's credibility is severely weakened because whether is memory is poor or his ethics shady, people perhaps shouldn't readily trust what he says about others.

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• Palestine and Israel
• War on Terrorism