We now know where the military learned Abu and Gitmo style tactics.

Secrets Of Unit 1391

March 2004 issue of Cathedra, circulation: 1,500) was the location of an ultrasecret jail where Israel has held Arabs in total seclusion for years, barred visits by the Red Cross and allegedly tortured inmates. Known as 1391, the facility is used as an interrogation center by a storied unit of Israel's military intelligence, whose members—all Arabic speakers—are trained to wring confessions from the toughest militants. According to Arabs who've been imprisoned in 1391, some of the methods are reminiscent of Abu Ghraib: nudity as a humiliation tactic, compromising photographs, sleep deprivation. In a few cases, at least, interrogators at 1391 appear to have gone beyond Israel's own hair-splitting distinction between torture and what a state commission referred to in 1987 as "moderate physical pressure."

But the nightmare for those in 1391 is the isolation and the fear that no one knows where you are, say Arabs who've been held there as well as an Israeli who's been inside the prison. The location of the compound is so hush-hush that a court this year banned a visit by an Israeli legislator. Prisoners describe being hooded everywhere at the facility except in their cells. Jailers often tell them they're on the moon or in another country (in fact, the compound is less than an hour's drive from Tel Aviv). "This can be devastating emotionally," says Dalia Kerstein, whose Israeli human-rights group, HaMoked, has petitioned the High Court of Justice to close down 1391. "We've seen that psychological pressure in certain instances can be even harder on inmates than physical pressure."