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Interrogating Painful encounters: The interrogation encounter as self-formation for

Palestinian political activists

Final Narrative and financial Report

Section I: Overview of the Research Project

This project investigates the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, taking as the site of investigation,

the interrogation-encounter between Palestinian political activists and the Shabak (Israeli

General Security Service). Since 1967 over 700,000 Palestinians have been arrested and

interrogated by Israel. This figure constitutes approximately 20% of the total Palestinian

population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and 40% of Palestinian males (Addameer

2009). Therefore, I argue that one cannot understand the Palestinian/Israeli relationship without

understanding the conceptualizations and practices related to the interrogation-encounter.

Particularly, the concepts and practices related to torture, pain, and ethical subjectivity.

Based on fifteen months of fieldwork in Jerusalem and Ramallah, the project addresses

Palestinian and Israeli conceptualizations of torture and pain, the strategies used to construct

these conceptualizations, and the resulting practices within the interrogation-encounter. It

explicates the forms of ethical subjects and ethical values produced throughout the interrogation-

encounter.

The interrogation-encounter is a revealing site for analyzing how notions of ethical selves

and values, have been mutually constituted by Palestinians and Israelis through their conflict.

Palestinians and Israelis alike constantly plan and train subjects for this encounter. The

encounter, therefore, is the outcome of thought ideologies and practices and anticipatory

assessments of the other. The mutual engagement shapes, and is shaped by, the larger public

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discourses regarding torture, pain, and ethics. The encounter signifies a direct battle between the

ideologies, beliefs and value systems of the Palestinian activist and the Israeli interrogators

within non-symmetric conditions. These conditions resonate with the transforming conditions of

the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and reflect the terms of this conflict. The interrogation gallows

constitute a space where the single Palestinian activist faces, alone, the Israeli interrogators who

have the power to determine the details of the interrogation setting, and to control the provision

of the activists basic needs. Despite this asymmetric setting, the activist still owns his/her will,

as activists define the interrogation a battle between wills. This battle is waged between the

activist and the interrogators who are the products and representatives of a broader conflict

between the Palestinian notions about the ethics of justice and suffering and the Israeli notions of

the ethics of power and security. Within the direct intimate encounter, the Palestinian activist

owns the information the interrogators demand, and can decide whether to provide this

information or not. This decision is affected by the articulation of multiple factors that associate

the single activist with his/her political community and value system. Based on conversations

with Palestinian activists, this thesis exposes these factors and answers the following questions:

what happens within this encounter? What are the tools available for each side? How the

relationship between the body and the will of the activist is constituted? And how do the shifts in

the practices of both sides within the encounter affect, and are affected by the terms of the

broader conflict?

As a major agent of Israeli occupation, the Shabak draws upon and builds up culturally

specific knowledge about Palestinians. This knowledge is informed by age, gender, political

affiliation and religiosity of Palestinian activists. The knowledge is employed in developing

effective disciplining technologies that aim to extract information, recruit collaborators, form

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submissive subjects, and destroy the will to resist, by isolating the Palestinian activist and

employing physical and psychological torture techniques. According to Palestinian activists, as

well as, international and local human rights organizations, the Shabak has regularly and

systematically employed physical and psychological torture in interrogating Palestinians

(B`tselem and Hamoked 2007, B`tselem 2000, Qatamesh and Shaaban 2003, Cohen and Golan

1991, Amnesty 1999, 2002). The project reveals the various interrogation techniques and their

implications, and examines the Israeli cultural-political understandings of torture and pain, and

the ethical values associated with them. It explicates the prevalent discourses and the intellectual

history of these concepts, and traces a chronology, timeline, and shifts in the production of these

concepts.

During the period under investigation (1967-2009), the interrogation-encounter has

undergone major transformations. These changes have influenced, and have been influenced by,

the shifts in the perceptions, ethical values, and practices related to the encounter and the

Palestinian/Israeli conflict in general. A number of factors are associated with these

transformations: 1) the long direct encounters between Palestinian activists and Shabak

interrogators; 2) international, regional, and local dynamics affecting the broader terms of the

conflict; 3) international and local responses to Shabak interrogation techniques; 4) Shabak`s

adoption of more complex and efficient power techniques; 5) and the shifts in the positions and

organizational abilities of Palestinian resistance movement in its various wings.

The project addresses the following questions in relation to Israeli concepts and practices:

How these concepts and practices shift over time? What factors contribute to the shifts? Who are

the main actors involved? How do the state of Israel and Israelis in general deal ethically,

conceptually, and practically with the prevalence of torture and pain in a state that defines itself

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as liberal democracy? In what ways torture and pain coexist with liberal ethics?. The project

elucidates how the shifts in the Israeli concepts and practices correspond to the foucaudian

notions about the development of efficient power techniques within modern-liberal societies, and

the deployment of biopower.

Arrest and interrogation have been central to the political culture of violence in Palestine,

much as Feldman (1991) noticed regarding Northern Ireland. Arrest and interrogation are critical

in the oral culture, as well as, the practices of activists and their supporting communities.

Palestinian political parties, aiming to cultivate activists through an intensive process of

preparation and nurturance, have developed conceptual/discursive and practical strategies to deal

with torture and pain. Their technologies of the self promote sumud (steadfastness) within the

interrogation-encounter. Sumud is a relational concept that constitutes a vital aspect of

Palestinians subjectivity and ethical values in relation to Israeli occupation, and it deeply shapes

the sense of Palestinian subjectivity and ethics. The specific meaning of sumud and the forms of

its cultivation vary in accordance with the ideology (Nationalist, Marxist or Islamic) of the

political party. While Marxist parties employ secular concepts for promoting sumud, Islamic

parties employ religious terms such as the power gained from the belief in God. Regardless of

political party, however, the process of training activists for sumud usually includes the use of

poetry and songs, heroic models (secular or religious), invoking successful resistance frontiers,

reading and discussing translated books written by revolutionists around the world (such as

Fucik 1990), and books published by Palestinian Political activists who experienced

interrogation (for example Qatamesh 1998 and Al-Hodali 2003).

The project addresses the following issues in relation to the Palestinian engagement with the

interrogation-encounter. 1) the conceptualizations of torture and pain and the ethical selves

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produced by multiple Palestinian political parties; 2) the detailed strategies used to construct

these conceptualizations and deploy them among activists and the whole community in a way

that organizes the popular culture around these conceptualizations. 3) the shifts in these

conceptualizations and the ways in which activists have engaged with these conceptualizations

and have enacted them within the interrogation-encounter through different periods. 4) the

multiple discourses that perceive/construct the Palestinian subject of torture.

The main activators of the discourses about the Palestinian activist include: 1) the Shabak

which constitutes the Palestinian subject as terrorist, a source for information and confessions, as

well as a subject to repress. 2) Israeli human rights organizations, promoted by liberal ethics

which constitutes the activist as an abstract victim, and a subject of violations of international

and humanitarian laws, stripped from any kind of agency. This discourse prompts the Shabak to

retrieve the information from the Palestinian terrorist in a manner that corresponds with liberal

humanitarian enlightened norms. 3) International and Palestinian psychological organizations

constitute the Palestinian activist as the subject of trauma, to be treated in professional physic

means. 4) the Palestinian parties constitute the activist as a subject of sumud, a freedom fighter in

need of training. Each discourse reflects a different value system.

In addition to the formations of these discourses and their ethics, the project analyzes the

narratives of Palestinian political activists themselves and their families, friends and surrounding

community. The ethical selves produced through the cultivation of Palestinian activists are

relational selves concerned with the collective and consider confession a betrayal to the

comrades, the party, and the Palestinian resistance movement.

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Section II: Research Methodology Employed

I collected ethnographic information from two key locations: Jerusalem and Ramallah.

From Jerusalem I gathered materials concerning the Shabak`s interrogation techniques. This

material includes: 1) Israeli human rights organizations` reports (Btselem, Hamoked, and the

Committee against Torture in Israel); 2) Landau official government commissions report about

the nature of Shabak activity; 3) the 1999 Israeli supreme court decision concerning the legality

of the interrogation methods used by the Shaback; 4) Shabak employees` memoires and

published interviews; 5) articles written in Israeli newspapers concerning the issue of torture, and

articles about specific cases of death of Palestinians as a result of torture; 5) court cases initiated

by lawyers and human rights organizations suing Shaback employees for using torture to extract

confessions from Palestinian activists.

I engaged in participant observation at the Committee Against Torture in Israel. I also

conducted in depth interviews with: 1) human rights organizations` employees and volunteers

who have worked on preparing reports and collecting Shabak`s responses to these reports; 2)

lawyers pursuing cases against the Shabak; 3) Israeli journalists.

These ethnographic information were employedin order to explore Israeli conceptions of

torture, pain and ethics related to the interrogation-encounter, how this encounter had affected-

and been affected by- court decisions and governmental reports, and International and local

human rights reports. In addition, the ethnographic information were employed in order to

investigate the relations between torture, pain, and liberal ethics.

In Ramallah and other West Bank cities and villages, I conducted in depth interviews with

leaders and high-level cadres of five Palestinian political parties; (FATEH, HAMAS, AL JIHAD

ALISLAMI, PFLP, PDLP). I participated in educational sessions conducted by some of these

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parties. I collected data on how torture and pain are conceptualized and discussed, and how

ethical selves are produced. I interviewed political activists who experienced interrogation in

different periods of Israeli occupation. I interviewed activists with diverse age, gender, locality,

social status and political affiliation in order to examine how different torture techniques are used

with different groups and in different periods. I explored also, the gender dimension of the

interrogation.

I engaged in participant observation at two Palestinian organizations: Adaameer- a human

rights organization advocating the rights of prisoners, and RTC a psychological organization for

the treatment and rehabilitation of Palestinian victims of torture. These ethnographic information

were employed for analyzing the various discourses about the Palestinian activist. I also

interviewed family members and friends of previous and current Palestinian political prisoners,

as well as, Palestinians interested in Palestinian popular culture in order to explore to what extent

and in what ways have the conceptualizations of torture and pain been disseminated within the

whole community and within popular culture, and how it affected ethical values.

Section III: The Products of the Research Project

The outcome of this research project will turn into a PhD thesis for my graduation at the

University of California-Davis. I plan to turn it later into a book both in English and Arabic. The

following is a chapter outline for my planned thesis.

Chapter One: Introduction

Situating the project within the conceptual debates around torture, pain and ethical subjects

within liberal and non-liberal traditions.

Chapter Two: Research Under Occupation

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Raising theoretical-methodological questions regarding the limitations of what can ever be

known about a context of occupation and how we get to know what we know in such context.

Chapter Three: The Site of the Interrogation-Encounter

Discussing the importance of the interrogation-encounter as a focal point for analyzing the

Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the ethical values related to it.

Chapter Four: Anticipating the Interrogation-Encounter

The Israeli Shabak various and shifting interrogation techniques and the Palestinian parties`

multiple conceptions and practices for facing it.

Chapter Five: Gender within the Interrogation-Encounter

Assessing the gender dimension of the interrogation-encounter and the Palestinian womens

selves and bodies constructed through the interrogation-encounter.

Chapter Six: The Constitution of the Interrogated Subject

The Palestinian activist in the discourses of human rights organizations, Psychological

organizations, the Shabak, the Palestinian political parties, the family and friends, and the

interrogated him/her self.

Chapter Seven: Conclusion

Section IV: Major Research Findings

1. The conceptualizations, practices, and values related to the interrogation-encounter are

associated (they affect and are affected by) with the shifts in the broader terms of the

conflict across the period ranging from 1967 to 2009. From the Palestinian perspective,

we can divide this period to four fazes: 1967 to late seventies; late seventies to 1987 (the

first Intifada); 1987 to 1993 (Oslo agreements). 1993 to 2009.

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2. The interrogation-encounter constitutes an encounter between the activists ideologies

and value systems and the interrogators` one. Within this encounter the interrogators

attempt to belittle the activists` believes through the logic of the power of the state of

Israel and its ideology. The interrogators emphasize the interests of the individual and the

logic of power in contrast to the activists values regarding the importance of the

collective and the community. The goal of Shabak interrogators is the production of

disciplined Palestinian individuals concerned with their own interests far from the

Palestinian cause.

3. The use of torture within interrogation does not aim just to extract information. It aims to

humiliate the activist and separate him from the community and its value system that

promote resistance.

4. The interrogation techniques are informed by the knowledge that Israeli social scientists

produce about the Palestinian society and its culture. This knowledge is employed to

weaken the activist will. Aspects such as religion and sexuality are employed in order to

develop interrogation techniques.

5. The interrogation techniques used by the Shabak had transformed since 1967 as a result

of local and international critique to the employment of torture within interrogation.

However, physical and psychological torture had never disappeared from the

interrogation. The transformations in the Shaback interrogation techniques go in

accordance with Foucaults notions about the development of the forms of efficient

power techniques within modern societies.

6. Israeli institutions, and the whole society perceive torture as a legitimate tool for

defending Israels security. Israelis incorporate torture within their legal system as

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means to make torture eligible within a liberal system in a way that illuminates how

torture in particular and violence in general are inherent within liberal systems and liberal

ethics. The Landau commission report in 1987, legitimized torture while labeling it

moderate physical pressure. It conceived torture as institutional objective rules

compatible with the liberal logic. The 1999 decision of the Israeli Supreme Court, while

illegalizing some torture techniques, enabled the continuation of torture through law, by

highlighting the imagined situation of ticking bomb. Regardless of these processes, the

shaback continued to employ physical and psychological torture techniques according to

its needs and definition of effective interrogation methods.

7. The term moderate physical pressure that Israelis use, assumes that pain could be

measured and instrumentalized.

8. The various wings of the Palestinian resistance movement, deal differently with the

interrogation as a site for direct encounter with the occupation and its colonial

mechanisms. However, the concept of sumud in general and sumud within the

interrogation in particular, became an essential component of Palestinian political culture.

In late seventies and during the Eighties, leftist parties and specifically the Popular Front

for the Liberation of Palestine have developed a systematic approach to promote sumud

within the interrogation through raising the slogan confession is betrayal. Other parties

or individuals within parties adopted this slogan and practiced it in cultivating their

activists. The systemization of this approach had changed during the nineties after Oslo

agreements and the shifts in the Palestinian resistance movement in general and the

organizational abilities of Palestinian parties.

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9. The process of training activists for the interrogation through discussions, reading books

and handbooks, raising heroic models and revolutionist frontiers, had different forms.

Leftist parties employed secular conceptions for cultivating activists for sumud. Islamic

parties employed religious conceptions and symbols.

10. The accumulation of Palestinian knowledge about interrogation techniques and the

employment of this knowledge to promote sumud had interrupted after Oslo agreements

and the transformation of Palestinian parties form of activism from secrecy to public

activism.

11. The practice of sumud within interrogation, in spite of all violent interrogation

techniques, informs us about the relation between the body and the will/spirit. The

narratives of activists who practiced sumud within the interrogation show that the will

has a complicated relation to the body under pain. The strength of the will is associated

with multiple factors that include individual and collective components.

12. The training for sumud produces ethical selves engaged in ethics of suffering and ethics

of justice. These selves are relational selves, concerned with the community and the

collective, in contrast to the individual selves of liberalism. Pain and suffering, therefore,

are essential in the production of ethical selves.

13. The meaning of sumud within the interrogation is broader than not delivering

confessions. Someone could confess partially, or confess totally, yet not giving up the

will to resist.

14. The Palestinian subject of torture has been a site for the intervention of multiple

discourses. Each one of these discourses has its value system and ethics. These discourses

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include the Shabak discourse, human rights organizations discourse, psychological

organizations discourse, and the political parties discourse.

15. To deal with Palestinian activists who undergone torture we need to capture the

articulation of various aspects of torture and pain. These aspects include the political,

cultural, and psychic levels. For instance, the treatment of the Palestinian tortured subject

with accordance to international, abstract psychic means ignores the political and cultural

meanings of torture and pain.

Section V: Gratitude

I appreciate the financial support that MERC provided for the completion of this

research project. MERC will be acknowledged in every publication related to this project.

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Financial Report

Non-Accountable Expenses

Local Travel $1000

Stipend $2000

Subtotal $3000

Accountable Expenses

Housing* $3600

Books and Photocopying** $262

Subtotal $3862

Total Expenses $6862

Total Expenses reported in the Interim Report $4038

Total Expenses for the entire period $10900

* The housing rent contract will be scanned and sent.

** Most photocopied items cost less than $20 for each piece. As you instructed, no receipts are

required for expenses below $25.