Hyehudi.org

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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