[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 201 (Tuesday, December 2, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8442-S8443]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PALESTINE
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, for those of us who have long supported
U.S. diplomatic leadership in pursuit of a secure, democratic Israel
alongside a demilitarized, independent Palestinian state, the
protection of due process and the rule of law has central importance.
[[Page S8443]]
Equal access to justice is essential for lasting peace in the Middle
East. Today, I voice a concern shared by many of my colleagues: the
incarceration, prosecution, and punishment of Palestinian children in
the Israeli military justice system.
As a former public defender and member of the Judiciary Committee's
Subcommittee on the Constitution, which has jurisdiction over human
rights, I have a perspective on the way justice systems should treat
children. To put it categorically, civilians, and especially children,
should not be prosecuted in military courts. It is analogous to how I
feel about child soldiers; children should not be recruited or allowed
to serve in the armed forces.
The reasons should be obvious. Civilians are, by definition,
noncombatants. Military justice systems lack independence and routinely
fall short in providing the fundamental protections of due process and
a fair trial that exist in the civilian justice system and which are
rooted in international law.
Israel, however, automatically and systematically prosecutes
Palestinian civilians in the West Bank in Israeli military courts under
Israeli military law. These courts lack impartiality and transparency,
as military court judges and military court prosecutors are active or
reserve duty officers in the Israeli military and subject to the chain
of command.
To make the process even less credible, in the West Bank Israeli
military law only applies to the Palestinian population, while Israeli
citizens have the benefit of the protections of Israeli civil law and
courts. This double standard is glaringly inconsistent with the
principle of equal justice that is foundational to a democracy.
According to numerous credible reports, Palestinian children are
frequently arrested in their homes by heavily armed Israeli soldiers.
They are bound, blindfolded, and often beaten in military vehicles
during transport before arriving at an Israeli police station for
interrogation, which is often located in an Israeli settlement. They
are routinely interrogated alone without the presence of a family
member or attorney and often threatened with physical violence if they
don't confess.
Nearly half of the approximately 350 Palestinian children currently
detained by Israel are in administrative detention. Most have not been
formally charged or brought to trial. When they are charged in military
courts, they are overwhelmingly accused of throwing rocks. Rarely are
they accused of causing injury or significant property damage.
Generally, there is no evidence-gathering process by Israeli
authorities for children who are charged in the military courts, so the
crux of the case is the child's confession or a signature on a document
in Hebrew they don't understand. There can also be an affidavit from an
arresting soldier or intelligence officer or an incriminating statement
made against the child by another child who was also arrested and
accused in connection with the same alleged incident.
Only a small percentage of Palestinian children in the military
courts are released on bail. Custodial pre-trial--and often pre-
charge--detention is the norm. Almost all prosecutions of children in
military courts are resolved with plea agreements, which are the
fastest way for a Palestinian child to be released from detention.
Entering a not guilty plea is rare, and contesting a charge in the
military courts means legal proceedings can be long and drawn out. To
put it bluntly, punishment, not justice, is the goal of the military
courts. The system is stacked unfairly against the child defendant,
whose family is not even allowed to be present during court hearings,
so irrespective of the facts or the reliability of the confession,
pleading guilty in return for the shortest time in jail--which can
still mean weeks or months or even years--is the norm.
I think of Mohammed Ibrahim, a Palestinian American who was detained
for nearly 10 months after being arrested at the age of 15 in his home
at 3 in the morning by heavily armed Israeli soldiers. He described
being bound and beaten while being transported and threatened while
being interrogated without the presence of a family member or an
attorney. U.S. Embassy officials who visited him most recently in
November described obvious deterioration in his mental and physical
condition.
Mohammed's case fits the pattern, except that he is an American
citizen. Putting aside that his confession may have been coerced, even
if everything he was accused of--throwing stones that caused no harm--
were true, it is unconscionable that he was abused and detained for
months. He was deprived of adequate food and reportedly lost a third of
his body weight. Senator Van Hollen, I, and other Members of Congress
repeatedly raised concerns about him, and thankfully, on Thanksgiving
Day, he was released. It is now the Israeli Government's obligation to
hold accountable the soldiers who beat him and the jailers who
mistreated him.
Israeli authorities have defended this inherently flawed and
discriminatory system as a necessary response to an ongoing state of
hostilities. There are at least three problems with that argument:
First, these are children. Children do not belong in military
detention or military courts, and the fact that they are caught in the
middle of a decades-long conflict doesn't change that. A child does not
become an armed combatant deserving of prosecution and punishment in
the military justice system because of throwing a stone that causes no
injury. Yet that is the reality for Palestinian children in the West
Bank.
Second, administrative detention, compounded by physical and
psychological abuse and humiliation of Palestinian detainees and the
lack of due process that is endemic in the military justice system,
have long-lasting impacts on a child. They have difficulty re-entering
and continuing school, face increased restriction on freedom of
movement, disruptions to family life, behavior and mental health
issues, and it fuels resentment and hatred.
And third, Israeli settlers routinely and increasingly engage in
provocations, threats, and violence--sometime deadly violence--against
Palestinians with impunity. These attacks and gratuitous destruction
and theft of Palestinian property are often observed and tolerated by
IDF soldiers. This too fuels hatred and more violence.
Absent a legitimate claim of self-defense, violence is wrong no
matter who engages in it. But the incarceration, prosecution, and
punishment of Palestinian children by Israeli military prosecutors and
judges should stop. It is a flagrant violation of international law. It
perpetuates an indefensible double standard of tiers of justice based
on ethnicity, religion, and nationality. And by fomenting hatred, it
makes Israel less secure.
Finally, it should stop because it reflects badly on the United
States. The Israel Defense Forces are a major recipient of U.S. aid,
and the United States should not explicitly or implicitly condone a
flawed system of justice that systematically abuses and violates the
rights of Palestinian children.
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