The confessions of the youth in the Duma trial that were obtained through torture are invalid. But the confessions obtained between torture sessions are valid. So the judges ruled last week.
In all my years in politics, I have never encountered a statement as ugly and cynical as this. Obviously, teenagers who are held in prison for weeks on end without being allowed to consult with an attorney, who are prevented from sleeping, and who are tortured and degraded physically and emotionally will eventually sign anything and confess to anything.
And then, in between one torture session and the next – or even if they are simply threatened with more torture – they will once again agree to sign.
When the Arabs in Gaza prepare incendiary balloons, our hairsplitting legal advisors prohibit the IDF from shooting at them so that no legal rule or human right is undermined, Heaven forbid. But when it comes to the hilltop youth, then “the roof will fall on our heads” (Bennett) if we do not throw all their basic human rights and every possible law to the wind.
“Whom do you believe?” the pundits cry. “Ayelet Shaked or [rightist lawyer] Itamar Ben Gvir?”
I believed Itamar Ben Gvir – because when you want to know if a politician is telling the truth, check what his possible interests could be. Bennett and Shaked stood to gain nothing politically by fighting the witch hunt against the hilltop youth that was led at the time by Bogi Ya’alon and the media.
This is in addition to the fact that before the arson that killed the Dawabshe family in Duma, a different house in Duma had already been torched and another five homes were torched afterwards – all of them on the same street and all of them belonging to the extended Dawabshe family.
The feuding Dawabshe clan learned – what a surprise – to write “price tag” on the walls of the burned homes to make it appear as though the house had been torched by hilltop youth.
But the media was eager for the blood of those vexatious hilltop youth with their large kippot and Bogi Ya’alon understood on which side his bread would be buttered.
For their part, Bennett and Shaked, instead of defending their constituents (the parents of those youths), joined the witch hunt, and the Religious Zionist rabbis did not interfere (apparently, the food in prison is kosher). That is how the State of Israel stooped to the level of torturing seven minors (whom it called “ticking time-bombs”).
Just like Roman Zadorov – in jail for years after being falsely accused of murder – there are two boys still in prison, and the system will never admit that it was wrong.
Today it is me. Tomorrow, it will be you.