"In 1999, Israel's courts banned the use of torture and so-called “physical interrogation techniques.” THAT is the “national policy.”

Not even the Israelis say that.

On September 6, 1999, Israel "banned torture". However, some special cases and exceptions would still be allowed. To truly eliminate the "culture of torture" which is deeply-ingrained in Israel's interrogation system, a serious punishment of interrogators who violate this law must be instituted. Sadly, interrogators are already given a wink, with special cases and exceptions, "a court might accept the argument that physical force was necessary." (AP, Sep 6).

Israel Fails to Address Increasing Use of Torture
15/103/2001 Publish date: 20/11/2001
GENEVA -- The Israeli government has failed to address the evidence of increasing use of torture by its law enforcement officials, Amnesty International said today as the United Nations Committee Against Torture prepares to examine the country's third periodic report.
Amnesty International's briefing to the Committee stated that, since the September 1999 High Court of Justice judgement which banned interrogation methods constituting torture, there has been strong evidence that these methods - including sleep deprivation often seated in painful positions; prolonged squatting on haunches; painful handcuffing - are now being used again.

Reports of Torture by Israelis Emerge
Rights Groups Document Frequent Police Abuses Against Palestinians
By Lee Hockstader Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, August 18, 2001; Page A01
HUSAN, West Bank -- It was nearly 1 a.m. on a chilly night in January when Israeli soldiers pounded on the Zaul family's door in this scruffy Palestinian village. "Open up, it's the army!" they shouted.
Then they rushed in and grabbed Ibrahim Zaul, 15, a lanky boy growing a wispy mustache. Zaul was taken to an Israeli police station, where for the next eight or nine hours, he said, he was blindfolded and spat upon, cursed and threatened with death, beaten with fists, truncheons and rifle butts until he screamed, doused with freezing water and forced to stand upright with a heavy weight hung excruciatingly from his neck.
"I would fall to the ground, and whenever I fell, they would kick me in the back," he said in an interview.
It did not take long for Zaul to break: Later that morning, he confessed to having thrown stones at Israeli troops and eventually served four months in prison.
About a dozen teenagers, all minors and most from Husan or nearby villages south of Jerusalem, have given similar accounts of arrests, beatings and torture by Israeli police in recent months. Their stories, which differ only in the harrowing details, have been recorded by Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations, which find them credible.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=104447

Israel uses torture in defiance of court ban, report says
By Steve Weizman in Jerusalem
12 November 2001
Israel has resumed systematic torture of Palestinian detainees even though the Israeli Supreme Court banned the practice two years ago, three human rights groups said in a joint report.
The document cited affidavits from detainees, including a 16-year-old who said he was soaked in freezing water, made to carry a heavy wooden beam while manacled and then beaten.

March 11 2001
Sharon set to legalise torture
Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
THE government of Ariel Sharon, meeting today for the first time, is to urge Israel's parliament to approve a law that would allow the security service to torture Arab detainees.
The use of "moderate physical pressure" during interrogation has been oulawed by the high court and Yossi Beilin, the former Labour justice minister, resisted demands by Shin Bet, the domestic security service, for its reintroduction.
Political sources said Sharon's administration, which was sworn in on Wednesday, was sympathetic to the demand and had enough support to push the measure through the Knesset.