Now that torture by the Shin Bet internal security service has finally been outlawed - in last week's landmark decision by the High Court of Justice - it is appropriate to review the protracted public debate on the issue. And, with the last instance of torture by a Shin Bet interrogator behind us, this is also a useful opportunity to consider the striking path followed by some other positions of the radical left to the present position at the very heart of the Israeli consensus.The Shin Bet began using torture at the outset of the occupation, in 1967. In the 1960s and 1970s the forms of torture that were utilized were more vicious and cruel than those that came into practice more recently. But back then the public knew nothing, heard nothing and, consequently, did nothing about the subject. Moreover, anyone who had the temerity to raise the possibility that the Shin Bet was torturing Palestinian interrogees was immediately condemned and denounced, not only by the ruling establishment but also by the free press.
When the London Sunday Times published a series of articles about Shin Bet torture tactics in 1977, official Israel scoffed at the "fantastic horror stories." Perhaps that was to be expected. But when the Swiss League for Human Rights came out with similar findings, the liberal Ha'aretz branded the group a "hostile organization." Similarly, the media lashed out at other human rights organizations, from Amnesty International to a lawyers' committee in the United States and an association of professors in Canada. All were excoriated as "PLO sympathizers" and "haters of Israel" for daring to claim that torture was being practiced in this country.
In Israel itself, there were at the time only a few loosely organized groups and a handful of individuals - all of them considered eccentric and beyond the pale - that had the courage to attack the torture practices publicly. Attorney Felicia Langer petitioned the High Court of Justice against Shin Bet torture as early as 1974, and her colleague, attorney Leah Tsemel (who was also involved in the petitions that led to last week's High Court decision) soon followed suit. A group called the League for Human and Civil Rights, which included Langer, Yisrael Shahak, Mordechai Abu Shaul and Joseph Algazy, also launched a struggle for an end to torture. Their message fell on deaf ears.
No one would listen to them, no one would believe them. They were perceived as traitors, enemies of the people. Even a dyed-in-the-wool peace activist like Uri Avnery thought at the time that the torture tales were exaggerated. It took ten years, and thousands of more cases of interrogees subjected to torture, before groups that were taken as more legitimate, such as B'Tselem and the Committee Against Torture in Israel (though it, too, was reviled) made the public aware of the truth. And it took another decade, and another myriad cases of torture, before the High Court of Justice banned the practice entirely.
Why was the torture of so many Palestinians for no good reason allowed to continue for so many years? Why were the particularly brutal practices, at least, not outlawed long ago? The answer has to do with the public's attitude: in the absence of a courageous moral leadership at the helm, the education of the public was a lengthy process. But now, when that process has finally been completed, we should take our hats off to those who, under almost impossible conditions, were the pioneers in the campaign to stop torture in Israel by the security authorities.
This is also an appropriate opportunity to acknowledge a debt to those who were in the forefront of a number of other critical political processes in Israel. They too were stigmatized as traitors to the cause, whereas today half the population (in some cases, the majority) hold the same positions. A book that was recently reprinted, some 40 years after its original publication - written by former leaders of the radical left Matzpen group, Akiva Orr and Moshe Mehuver, who in 1961 did not dare use their real names - shows how even some positions of that ephemeral organization, the scourge of the establishment, are today part of the consensus.
In the early 1960s, Matzpen dared claim that the heart of the conflict in the Middle East was the Palestinian problem. Official Israel denied this and asserted that the source of the conflict lay in the burning desire of the Arab world to destroy Israel. Today, who would not agree that without a solution of the Palestinian problem there will be no peace? Consider how the onset of the Oslo accord led most of the Arab world to make overtures to Israel. That same notorious Matzpen group also published, in September 1967, three months after the conquest of the territories, a leaflet which both the right wing of the Labor Party and Meretz would accept today without blinking an eye. "Occupation brings terrorism and counter-terrorism in its wake," Matzpen warned 32 years ago, and was accused of heresy.
Its activists were denounced and ostracized, exactly like the pioneers of the contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization - Uri Avnery, Lova Eliav, Matti Peled and their colleagues - were condemned half a decade later. Who remembers that Yuli Tamir, now a cabinet minister, and former Meretz MK Dedi Zucker were almost expelled from Peace Now because they dared meet with the PLO's Issam Sartawi (who was later assassinated by Arab extremists for his peace efforts)? Who remembers that the struggle against house demolitions in the territories and against "administrative detention" (arrest without trial), against the draconian Defense (Emergency) Regulations, against the Military Government and against deportations form the territories did not begin with the new (and courageous) justice minister, Yossi Beilin, but was launched by the radical left and by Israeli communists, "turncoats" all?
But more is involved than a gesture of appreciation for those who spearheaded the human rights struggle. From internalization of the struggle against torture to recognition of the need to talk to the PLO, Israel is following steadily, step by step, the positions taken by the radical left years back. Israel's forward motion is appallingly slow, and - together with the entire region - it is paying a steep and unnecessary price for its tardiness. But the direction is clear. So if the radical left was right in at least some of the positions it took, perhaps this is a good time to adopt a few more of its ideas - on Jerusalem, the refugees and the settlements, for example - and thus save us precious years and spare us from shedding even more precious blood