UK knew about Israel’s brutal torture of Palestinian detainees 50 years ago, but refused to act, British documents reveal

Documents from the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office show that Britain was aware that Israeli authorities were systematically torturing Palestinian and Arab detainees in mid-1977 but declined to pressure Israel to halt these practices.

In June 1977, the Sunday Times published a shocking dossier exposing the brutal torture of Palestinian and Arab detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centres. The report described the torture as “systematic” and “organised so methodically that it cannot be dismissed as a handful of ‘rogue cops’ exceeding orders”.  It found that torture “appears to be sanctioned at some level as deliberate policy” and detailed 17 different methods of abuse, including beatings, genitalia squeezing, insertion of foreign objects into body orifices, hanging upside down, cigarette burns, and torture of family members in front of prisoners.”

The Sunday Times’ dossier was based on interviews with former detainees who described other physical abuse and psychological pressure during their detention.

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At the time, the FCO reports indicated there were 3,200 Palestinian and Arab detainees from the occupied territories, Egypt, Syria and Jordan held in Israeli prisons or detention centres in Israel and the territories occupied by the Israeli military in the 1967 war.

The documents show that before the report’s publication, the Sunday Times shared its findings with then-UK FOreign Secretary David Owen. British diplomats in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem conducted confidential interviews with officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Quaker Service (QS), a Northern Ireland charity, to explore their views on the torture allegations.

James Fine of QS confirmed to Mike Jenner, the British consul-general in East Jerusalem, that “all forms of torture used in Northern Ireland had been used [against the Palestinians] here [by Israel].” He gave examples such as “hooding, sleep deprivation, and bread-and-water diets.” Fine added that “in all interrogations, some beating up was used,” and in a minority of cases, “serious” beatings occurred. He further noted that more sophisticated torture such as “electric shocks, bottles up the anus and objects inserted into the penis” were used in “a few cases”. While Fine acknowledged the evidence came from Palestinian and Arab detainees and prisoners, he emphasised that “exaggeration must be discounted”.

Jenner informed his bosses in the FCO that Fine believed that body of evidence was “so consistent that, at the very least, there was a prima facie case for a full enquiry into allegation of torture.”

The ICRC representative in Jerusalem, Alfredo Witschi, supported the Sunday Times findings, calling the report “a very fair presentation of the available evidence,” despite it containing “some mistakes”. Witschi stated that the ICRC possessed a “similar evidence though in much greater quantity”, alerting the British diplomat that the weight of the ICRC’s evidence of beating up, which he said was very severe in some cases, was such that he “considered it amounted to proof” of torture.

He suggested that Israeli interrogators “were unlikely to be acting without instructions” and these instructions “were possibly to give them a free hand provided that they didn’t go too far”. Witschi also highlighted that the Sunday Times report “paid too little attention” to psychological techniques of torture used by the Israelis  such as “threat of torture after exhausting the suspect by sleep deprivation and rigorous exercises.” The ICRC official was keen to alert Jenner that their conversation should be confidential.

The FCO Research Department reviewed the Sunday Times report and concluded that the allegations were “consistent with the available evidence from other sources, including the ICRC.” It acknowledged that psychological pressure was “probably condoned by higher authorities in Israel,” and more serious cases of maltreatment were probably isolated but did occur. The department drew the attention of FCO officials that the more serious allegations are “against Shin Bait [Israeli Internal Security Service] personnel in Moscobia, Hebron and Sarafand prisons.”

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The Near East and North Africa Department (NENA) within the FCO noted that the sources for the allegations were primarily Arab prisoners and their legal representatives, making the accounts potentially one-sided. However it admitted the allegations of torture in the Israeli prisons “is not entirely inconsistent with that which emerges from the other material available to us and in particular with what the ICRC representative in Jerusalem told the Consulate-General there in confidence.”

William R. Tomkys, head of NENA, recommended raising the issue discreetly with Avraham Kidron, the Israeli ambassador to London, rather than involving the UK ambassador in Tel Aviv, to avoid straining relations with the Israeli government. “We may get off on the wrong foot with Mr Kidron as a result but this is less damaging than the risk that HM ambassador at Tel Aviv might lose the confidence of Mr Begin’s government,” Tomkys wrote.

He suggested advising Israel to conduct “a public inquiry”, arguing it would be “consistent with Israel’s close concern for human rights” and address widespread public concern in the UK about the allegations about the Israeli treatment of prisoners.

However, Foreign Secretary Owen instructed the FCO to wait till he addressed the issue with US Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance.

Commenting on Tomkys’ report and recommendation, Owen ordered “No action to be taken” instructing the issue “should be raised at a political level not Ambassadorial.” But he stressed that raising the issue should be “certainly not immediately”. Owen stressed to his staff that “we will also need to discuss with the Americans whom I know need time to consider” the issue.

He also disclosed that he had spoken to Sunday Times Editor Harry Evans about the report but the documents did not show whether he had shared the details of their conversation with his staff.

When the British ambassador raised the issue with the US State Department, officials confirmed they “had taken the report of the Sunday Times seriously.” However, Walter Smith, head of Israeli and Arab-Israeli Affairs, told the ambassador he was preparing a paper for Vance and the Americans “would encourage one or two members of the American Bar Association to get in touch with their Israeli opposite numbers to see whether further investigation leading to remedial action would be possible.”

The Sunday Times report sparked significant public and political concern in the UK. Thirty-three Members of Parliament signed a motion to discuss the issue in July 1977, while others wrote letters to Owen and his ministers. David Watkins, an MP and member of the Labour Middle East Council, strongly criticised the government’s “failure” to address the violations of Palestinians’ rights and to raise the issue “more vigorously and more openly” with the Israeli government given the available evidence. He warned that the UK risked being accused of “applying double standards” if it did not act as it had in the case of South Africa.

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 The MP pressed the ministers to inform him whether the UK has done all it should to find out the truth about “the persistent of allegations of torture” in Israeli prisons. He slammed what he described as “covering up” the Israeli ill-treatment of the Arab prisoners and detainees “both officially and on the news media”, giving an example of a US State Department document, which he confirmed he has seen, reporting on Israel observance of human rights in both Israel and the occupied territories. The MP described the document, prepared for Jimmy Carter, the then-US president, as “remarkably dishonest”. Watkins believed that the paper “was designed to assure the President that in difficult circumstance, Israel is making commendable, even if not wholly successful, effort to provide for and observe the Palestinian human rights both in Israel and in the occupied territories.”

In his response to Watkins, Frank Judd, minister of state for the Middle East, acknowledged that the allegations published by the Sunday Times were “disturbing” and stressed the need for Israel to address them.

Judd stressed that if true, these stories “would also reflect a situation which we, as a government committed to the promotion of human rights worldwide, would view most seriously.”

He suggested an “independent inquiry”, but he noted that its success would require Israel’s full cooperation. He rejected any idea to press Israel, expressing fears that if the UK raised the individual cases of human rights violation with the Israelis, such a move “would almost certainly be misinterpreted as an attempt to put political pressure on Israel over the wider issues of a Middle East settlement.”

Watkins, however, insisted that pressure on Israel was necessary, arguing that Israel would never withdraw from occupied territories or recognise Palestinian rights “except under pressure”.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.