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News :: Miscellaneous |
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A violation of natural justice |
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by Haaretz via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
22 Jul 2002
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Editorial, under the masthead of a major Israeli paper, condemning proposed plan to exile relatives of suicide bombers from the West Bank into Gaza. Quote: "It violates the laws of the state, international law, and the biblical injunction, 'The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son (Ezekiel, 18:20).' ... This is but one example of the perversions resulting from the blind insistence on holding onto the territories." |
Monday, July 22, 2002
A violation of natural justice
The sense of natural justice is outraged by the decision to exile relatives of suicide bombers to Gaza. This sweeping government move is being translated into action with the hesitant backing of the attorney-general and it soon will go into effect unless it is nipped in the bud. This decision should be vehemently opposed, for it contradicts the most basic moral principles.
The decision is based on the assumption that it will deter Palestinian suicide bombers from sowing death and destruction in the streets of Israel. It was conceived as a result of the realization that the state and security forces do not have other means to deter those ready to die. The hope is that tough collective punishment of their relatives will deter potential suicide bombers. No matter how understandable the frustration of the security authorities, which are doing the best they can - including sacrificing their own lives - to protect Israel's citizens from the Palestinian terrorists, expulsion must be rejected forthwith because it is a move that would knowingly punish the innocent. It violates the laws of the state, international law, and the biblical injunction, "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son (Ezekiel, 18:20)." A state planning to use such a means of punishment shows it has lost the ability to distinguish between right and wrong.
In the choice between the possibility that exiling relatives of suicide bombers will reduce the number of attacks and the certainty that innocent people will be punished, preference must be given to the moral commandment, which prohibits blind vengeance and harming those who did not sin. This is indeed the meaning of the decision and one cannot lend a hand to any attempts to make it appear ambiguous with a fig leaf provided by the attorney-general. Elyakim Rubinstein approved exiling individual members of suicide bombers' families, if it can be proved they helped commit the crime, but the IDF did not ask for permission to expel those individuals whose crime is clear beyond a reasonable doubt. For that, the existing system of investigation, interrogation, trial, and punishment is sufficient. The IDF wants to use collective punishment as a deterrent against a community that spawns suicide bombers.
The ruthless intifada that came out of the failure to reach an agreement at Camp David in the summer of 2000 is leading Israel down a slippery slope on which it is ever more difficult for it to use the necessary brakes. In the context of its fight against terror, the state finds itself being dragged into using preventive and deterrent measures that result in giving up basic moral principles. Each of these means appear, at the time, to be necessity resulting from reality, but the accumulated result is a frightening retreat from Israel's declared commitment to the rules of natural justice. This is but one example of the perversions resulting from the blind insistence on holding onto the territories. |
