Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Misuse of power in Israeli intelligence

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 20; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13537121.2013.863081

1743-9086

Ephraim Kahana, Daphna Sharfman,

International Law and Human Rights

AbstractOne of the relatively minor security organizations in the Israeli Ministry of Defence, the MALMAB – tasked with protecting Israel's well-known policy of nuclear ambiguity – has gone beyond the usual criminal process established by the rule of law to the grey area of interrogating and even harassing people who seemed to not abide by its strict policies, thus highlighting the tension between legal rules and non-legal sanctions exercised in the name of national security. This article analyses three different cases connected to the issue of nuclear ambiguity, while aiming to debate the sensitive issue, prominent in every democracy, of the limits and balance of security versus democracy.Keywords:: MALMABYehiel HorevMordechai VanunuAvner CohenYossi SaridDirector of Security of the Defence Establishment (DSDE)national securityintelligence Notes 1. Mark M. Lowenthal, Intelligence from Secrets to Policy (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2003), 222. 2. Menachem Hofnung, “Civil Oversight of the Security,” in Democracy and National Security in Israel, ed. Benyamin Nuiberger and Ilan Ben Ami (Tel Aviv: Open University, 1998), 313–38. 3. The Landau Commission was a three-man commission set up by the Israeli government in 1987 to examine the above scandals. Headed by former Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau, the committee found that the ISA interrogators routinely used physical force during the interrogation of prisoners and then committed perjury in subsequent trials. In its conclusion, approved by the Cabinet in November 1987, it established guidelines for the use of a ‘moderate measure of physical pressure’. The details of the recommendations were described in the classified appendix to the report. In 1994, the UN Committee against Torture stated: ‘The Landau Commission Report, permitting as it does “moderate physical pressure” as a lawful mode of interrogation, is completely unacceptable to this Committee’. See Eric Goldstein, Prison Conditions in Israel and the Occupied Territories – A Middle East Watch Report (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1991), 11. 4. Ephraim Kahana, Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006), 77–9. 5. E. Davenport, P. Eddy, and P. Gillman, The Plumbat Affair (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1978), 46–51. 6. Grant Smith, “Israel's Nuclear Triggers: Secret Files Reveal Brazen Israeli Espionage and Dangerous Immunity in the US,” Al-Jazeerah: Cross-Cultural Understanding [Opinion Editorials], March 2012. 7. Amir Oren, “A Secret Guard for Nuclear Ambiguity,” Haaretz, March 27, 2012. 8. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). 9. Authors’ interview with Avner Cohen, July 15, 2004.10. Avner Cohen, The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel's Bargain with the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 25–34.11. “All Things Nuclear Must Pass: US, Israel and Iran,” Salem-News.Com, http://www.salem-news.com/articles/november052010/all-things-nuclear-ef.php (accessed November 27, 2013).12. Yossi Sarid in an interview with Ephraim Kahana, July 12, 2011.13. Sarah J. Diehl and James Clay Moltz, Nuclear Weapons and Non-Proliferation: A Reference Handbook (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008), 208.14. Yoel Cohen, The Whistleblower of Dimona: Israel, Dimona and the Bomb (Teaneck, NJ: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 2003), 24–38.15. Eileen Fleming, Beyond Nuclear: Mordechai Vanunu's Trial and My Life as a Muckraker (Orlando, FL: C&S PRESS, 2010), 54–62.16. “The Apprenticeship of Mordechai Vanunu,” The Sydney Morning Herald, June 17, 2002.17. “News – Norwegian Peace Prize for Mordechai Vanunu,” The Peace People, April 5, 2005. “Mordechai Vanunu has been awarded the Norwegian People's Peace Prize for 2005 for his courageous action of protecting the people in Israel, the Middle East and the world against destruction in a nuclear holocaust.”18. Yossi Melman, “Who is Afraid from Vanunu,” Haaretz, March 15, 2004.19. “U.S. Expert: It's Safe to Release Vanunu,” Haaretz Daily, January 26, 2000.20. David E. Pozen, “The Mosaic Theory, National Security, and the Freedom of Information Act,” Yale Law Journal 115 (2005): 630.21. See especially Section 1 & 2 of the Freedom of Information Law, 5758-1998.22.http://www.freedominfo.org/regions/middle-east/israel/23. Churchill's famous dictum: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” (from a House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947).Additional informationNotes on contributorsEphraim KahanaEphraim Kahana chairs the Political Science Department and the National Security Programme at the Western Galilee College in Israel.Daphna SharfmanDaphna Sharfman is a lecturer in the Political Science Department, Western Galilee College.