Posted on Fri, Aug. 16, 2002
How far should Israel go?
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al Aqsa intifada, the current campaign of terror that the Palestinians
have launched against Israel, is approaching its second anniversary. The
grim results so far: Some 600 Israelis dead and three times that number
on the Palestinian side. Apart from the waste of lives, people on both
sides are becoming poorer. The Israelis have lost huge revenues because
the tourism industry has been destroyed, and the Palestinian have gone
broke because of curfews and the collapse of commerce.People are willing to make sacrifices for a national cause, and both Israelis and Palestinians have shown a great deal of resilience in this last round in their longtime conflict. If the Palestinians believed that the Israelis would yield to pressure, they were up to some bitter surprise. The Israelis, on the other hand, were wrong to assume that the Palestinians, suffering such losses and setbacks, would give up their struggle.
A deadlock, then, and a very dangerous one. While each side has thoughts about the need to put an end to this bloodshed and get back to the negotiating table, there is also an urge to try one more time, maybe to escalate the fighting a bit more, to break the other party's will. The Palestinians might be plotting a ''mega'' terror attack that would leave Israelis breathless and despaired, and the Israelis are looking for counter-measures to curb this scheme and hurt the Palestinians so much that they ultimately say enough is enough.
There's my dilemma. On one hand, as an Israeli, I fully support any ways and means that would repel the enemy. My son, who works in the city center of Jerusalem, has perilously escaped some terror attacks. Wouldn't I endorse any action taken by my government to protect his life? Like any father, I certainly would. On the other hand, would I support anything?
Take, for example, the recent actions that Israel has been taking against families of suicide-bombers: It has been demolishing their homes and expelling family members from villages and towns. The government posits that if Palestinians are willing to blow themselves up, believing that they are doing a holy act of martyrdom, they might think twice if they know that as a result of their deeds, their families will suffer.
There are mixed views in Israel concerning the efficiency of these measures, and some experts maintain that whenever a house is demolished, 10 future suicide bombers are born on the spot, from among the kids watching. They consider these measures counter-productive.
Yet, this is not about efficiency only; it's about Israel's democracy, Israel's soul.
If these recent measures fail, shall we have our air force level a whole village, because one of its residents committed an act of terror? A Knesset member already has entertained such an idea -- without creating too much public uproar. Which means that we are on a slippery slope: Things that were unheard of yesterday are becoming kosher today. Will we go ahead and implement them tomorrow?
We should look up to our own moral standards: ''The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.'' (Deuteronomy, 24, 16).
When democracy has to fight against terrorists who don't have the slightest respect for democratic values, the struggle is difficult and frustrating. Yet the only way to fight -- and win -- this battle is by not letting those thugs drag us down with them.
We must go after the terrorists -- kill them if they are on the way to spread death, or bring them to trial. It is tough, but this is the only way to prevail over evil and remain a society worth fighting for.
Uri Dromi is publications director at the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem.