The US made a mistake after 9/11. Israel shouldn't repeat it | Opinion

Luke P. Ihnen
·3 min read
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The stories and images coming out of Israel are heartbreaking. The depravity of the Hamas attackers was shocking and disturbing. Let’s be clear: Israel has every right to defend itself from these horrific attacks. The United States and the international community have rightly condemned the violence and stood steadfast with Israel.

Comparisons have been made to the attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and the nation's immediate and robust response. Many of us can still remember where we were that day, and the day after, when the country and the world were united behind the United States’ war on terror.

Kibbutz Nir Oz resident Hadas Kalderon, whose children have been taken hostage and whose mother and niece have been killed, breaks down in tears while looking through the burnt-out home of her late mother, Rina Sutzkever, on Oct. 30 in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel.
Kibbutz Nir Oz resident Hadas Kalderon, whose children have been taken hostage and whose mother and niece have been killed, breaks down in tears while looking through the burnt-out home of her late mother, Rina Sutzkever, on Oct. 30 in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel.

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There is another comparison, though, I feel compelled to make, one the people of Israel — and the world — should be wary of. In the days following the attacks on 9/11, President George W. Bush, senior members of his cabinet and other executive-level agencies developed a covert plan for the extraordinary rendition and torture of people and countries believed to be responsible for the attacks, those who aided or abetted the attackers and, ultimately, anyone with knowledge of either.

More than two decades later, the memory of the atrocious acts perpetrated in the name of justice have all but faded. But 30 detainees are still being held captive as a relic of the time the United States compromised its integrity. I should know: I represent one of the men who was tortured and has been detained at Guantanamo Bay for almost two decades, despite never having been charged.

We were told that the capture and rendition of suspected terrorists to black sites around the world was a tradeoff; that no cost was too great to bring the perpetrators to justice. After it was exposed that the United States military and intelligence services, with the help of other foreign intelligence services, engaged in torture, hindsight tells us a different story.

Not only did the United States compromise its integrity on the world stage, but it betrayed its values and the rule of law. In the words of Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 84: “Confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.”

There is no indication that Israel is even considering such a program, and there is every indication that the United States and the international community are encouraging Israel to take a measured approach as it seeks justice for the victims of Hamas’ inhumane attacks. Even so, the level of suffering being waged against innocent civilians in Gaza is already a betrayal of the values many of the people in Israel hold dear. Sometimes, when clothed with the power of righteousness, we betray the things that mean the most to us.

Luke Ihnen
Luke Ihnen

Let the 30 men left at Guantanamo Bay serve as a reminder that sometimes there can be too great a cost for justice. I hope Israel will do as we say, not as we do.

Luke P. Ihnen is an assistant federal defender with the federal public defender for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Opinion: Israel shouldn't repeat the mistake the US made after 9/11