I came upon this piece in Shma (by way of Matthew Yglesias' blog) that demonstrates that a certain segment of the American Jewish Community has lost its mind in response to the Palestinian terror offensive. Renowned civil rights lawyer Nathan Lewin proposes the following as a response to suicide terror attacks:
What if Israel and the United States announced that henceforth the perpetrators of all suicide attacks would be treated as if they had brought their parents and brothers and sisters with them to the site of the explosion? Suicide killers should know that they will take the lives of not only themselves and the many people they don't know (but nonetheless hate) in the crowd that surrounds them when they squeeze the button that detonates their bomb, but also the lives of their parents, brothers, and sisters. The nation whose civilians are killed or maimed should, by "targeted assassinations" or other means, be free promptly to execute the immediate relatives of the suicide bombers. This consequence would, I believe, deter most suicide killers - many of whom now anticipate that not only will they be rewarded in a world-to-come, but that their immediate families will be honored and granted lavish benefits on this earth.
The frightening aspect of this column is that Lewin is not some wild-eyed fanatic, but a learned, observant Jew. He is fully aware of the Jewish religion's attitude towards capital punishment, he knows quite well of the ethical obligations that the Torah places upon the Jewish people, and yet he advocates such barbarism (coming pretty close to labeling the Palestinians as Amalek).
My first thought is that he's lost his mind. Yes, the terror bomings are sickening, evil, and frightening, but they are not the second Holocaust - the Arabs are no closer to the eradication of the Jewish State than they were before they began this latest slaughter of innocents. Second, in his panicked state, he overlooks the wide gulf between the pinprick and partial measures Israel has taken so far and the potential legitimate military responses it can take. The far more sensible radical reponse is reoccupation and complete dismantling of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian leadership has decided to use terror as a negotiating technique - as a result it needs to be punished and eradicated, not the members of the Palestinian civilian population.
My second thought is that we continue to allow such ideas to kick around in mainstream Jewish discourse, we risk losing our soul. I am in no way affirming the nonsense of the uber-pure or self-hating Jewish Left - who cringe at the idea that Jews have a right to self-defense. Nor do I pander to the "enlightened" anti-Semites who hammer at Israel with impossibly high double-standards. At its covenental core, Jewish ethical behavior is essential for its own sake. Israel, as the Jewish State, is bound up in the commitments of the Jewish people. And all the blather of the Israel haters to the contrary, Israeli self-defense has met these commitments.
The Middle East has for its history been a blood-soaked region, where a code of vengeance prevailed. One of the greatest gifts that Judaism gave to a world was a blueprint on how to move pass a culture of vengeance-seeking to create a culture of justice-seeking. If Jews cease to seek justice and instead seek vengeance, they will cease to be Jews. The Jewish body may remain, with Jewish trappings, muttering Jewish ritual, but at its core the Jewish soul will have perished.
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