Israel's Government Reaches a New Moral Low

A state that adopts the legal methods and laws of totalitarian states begins to
look like those countries, even if it calls itself 'the only democracy in the Middle
East.'
Haaretz Editorial Mar 06, 2016 1:14 AM
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The remains of the home of Mohammed Harub in Deir Samet, who is charged
with killing three at the Gush Etzion junction in November 2015.Alex Levac
Newborn twins left homeless after Israel demolishes Palestinian terrorist's
home
Netanyahu seeks attorney general's authorization to deport terrorists' families
from West Bank to Gaza
A senseless discussion over 'who grieves more,' Israelis or Palestinians
The right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is
finding it difficult to cope with the lone-wolf intifada, which has been
underway for more than five months. The frustration and helplessness of
ministers in the face of public pressure is dragging them into a moral abyss.
A new moral low was recorded by Netanyahu last week, with his very public
demand that Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit legitimize the idea of
deporting the families of terrorists from the West Bank and East Jerusalem to
the Gaza Strip. Mendelblit rejected the idea, explaining that it contravened
international law, which prohibits the deportation of inhabitants from occupied
lands.
Netanyahus letter to the attorney general looked like a transparent public
relations exercise, intended to present the jurists as scapegoats as if they
are the ones preventing the government from dealing with rampant terror. The
exercise is also intended to release pressure brought to bear by Transportation
and Road Safety Minister Yisrael Katz, whose push for a law allowing for the
deportation of such families presents Netanyahu as a weak and soft politician.
But even if Mendelblit stands his ground and reiterates the legal impediments
against such deportation, the moral stain of Katz and Netanyahus proposals will
not fade. Over the past few months, Israel has adopted the principle known in
German as sippenhaft meaning a familys shared responsibility for a crime
committed by one of its members. Its origins lie in ancient times, when an
offenders entire tribe would be punished for his crimes. In the modern era, this

principle was characteristic of totalitarian regimes, when the relatives of

enemies of the state were punished by exile, imprisonment or execution.
Today, this method is common in North Korea.
The Netanyahu governments response to shooting, knifing and car-ramming
attacks is based on the same principle: The family that supports and assists
the terrorist, as Netanyahu put it, is as guilty of terror as the offender. That is
why house demolitions have been renewed. According to figures by the nonprofit
BTselem, 31 Palestinian homes have been demolished whose relatives were
involved in attacks, with other demolitions planned. That is also why Israel is
holding the bodies of attackers from East Jerusalem and punishing their
families by delaying burials. Israeli advocates of sippenhaft argue that its the
only way to deter the Palestinians, citing cases in which families gave up
suspects as proof that the method works. To them, the deportation of families
to Gaza seems the ultimate weapon against lone-wolf attacks.
But the Palestinians are not the only ones wholl pay the price for punishing the
families; Israel will, too. Because a state that adopts the legal methods and laws
of totalitarian states begins to look like those countries, even if it calls itself
the only democracy in the Middle East.
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