last summer while i was in israel, a palestinian living in east jerusalem carried out an attack on civilians in jerusalem using a bulldozer as his weapon. you may recall reading about that incident in a post i wrote at the time. when it occurred, many individuals with whom i spoke of the incident wondered whether it was a calculated terrorist attack against jewish israelis or if it was more akin to random terrorism similar to those acts carried out in our own country in which disgruntled, depressed, and/or otherwise emotionally turmoiled individuals take out their anger in violent, murderous, reprehensible acts.
today, i learned that on april 7, israeli security forces demolished the home of the family of the man who committed the bulldozer attack. no evidence exists that the family had anything to do with the attack. none. the israeli government claims that such punitive actions are a message to the greater palestinian community in an effort to deter future attacks. b'tselem, an israeli human rights group that monitors human rights abuses within the occupied territories, condemns this action.
i wonder how citizens in america would react if our government implemented a policy in which families of criminals are punished by having their homes demolished.
would we sit by if 664 homes were destroyed under this premise in a three year period?
would we believe that this action actually deterred future crimes?
this policy is a blatant breach of international humanitarian law. sadly, we seem to turn a blind eye to international law unless we consider those who are violating it fall under the category of people we don't like.
perhaps it is time that we hold democratic governments accountable for how they treat others (and yes, i'm implying that this should apply to our own government as well). perhaps the homes of israeli government officials should be threatened with demolition orders by the world community in order to deter future transgressions that violate the law. surely that would work to deter them?
A Pilgrim's Tales has Moved!
9 years ago
1 comment:
Hi Jeanne:
Nice work on this post. One of the things that has struck me as new torture memos have come out this week is that progressives were NOT sufficiently cynical the past 8 years. Which is kinda incredible given how cynical things became. But seriously, even progressive people who hated torture thought surely it was done to keep us safe. But the reality is that the torture regime was implemented WITH THE GOAL of obtaining false confessions (to try to link 9/11 to Iraq).
So too, the goal of the Iraq war wasn't to make us safe -- the goal was to lynch some brown people on the international stage -- cuz that's just how the Bushies roll.
I wonder if there really is any policy goal when it comes to home demolition (or the Iraq war). I know the lawyers and the media spin people say that there is a strategic goal but on a practical level I don't think we've seen any evidence that it works. And it's not like people are demanding to see evidence that it works either. Sometimes I think countries just hit back for hitting sake -- it makes frightened people feel better to feel like they are doing something -- and the weaker the opponent -- the more powerful it makes us feel.
~RFK Action Front
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