On Tue, Jan 01, 2002 at 10:35:22AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > In a message dated 12/31/01 12:12:06 PM Eastern Standard Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > I think the grey area comes in through the definition of > > "non-military targets". Since some people here believe that most > > Palestinians support terrorism, it becomes a simple matter to > > justify killing any Palestinian, since the argument would go that > > supporting terrorism makes them an accomplice to terrorism and thus > > a military target. > > I would argue that your logic is seriously flawed.
And you would lose that argument, since the logic is fine. What you argue below is that no one on the list, nor the Israelis, have used that logical argument (which I hope is true). You give no support that the argument is illogical. The problem is not with the logic, but with the ambiguity of who is a military target when terrorism is occurring, and a whole group of people are thought to support terrorism. An argument like I outline above HAS been used on the list to support destroying the homes of people who are related to terrorists. It is not a big step from there to killing. In fact, one could argue that by destroying poor family's homes, you are likely to be responsible for some deaths due to disease or starvation. By the way, why bother trying to find out if a group of people support terrorism? I can think of two reasons. One possibility is the intention to use that information to help prevent terrorism. Sounds good, but if the answer is that the overwhelming majority of several million people support terrorism, there isn't really much that can be done, is there? The other reason is the intention to use that information, at least in one's own mind, to justify doing something to those terrorist supporters. > The fact that Palestianians support terrorism has not been used as a > justification for the killing of any Palestinian. Certainly not on > this list and more importantly it has not been used by the government > of Israel. I hope that is true. You'll notice that I didn't claim that it had been used, rather that it would be a simple matter to use such a justification. > As far as I can tell none of those on this list who have supported > in any fraction the Israeli response have said that the fact of > Palestinian support for terrorist acts (e.g. suicide bombings aimed > at children and young adults) gives Israeli's license to kill > Palestinians as they please. In fact, one of the points of this whole > discussion is that the state of Israel does not make this claim and > does not act in this manner. Hmmm. I haven't seen discussion of polls on the thoughts of Israelis on this matter. Have you seen any Israeli polls along the lines of, do you support attacking the friends and family of terrorists as military targets? > Suicide bombings result in military actions against those who are > believed to be responsible for the terrorist acts. The Israeli's do > not simply go out and kill Palestinians indiscriminantly. Yes, and that is admirable. I hope most Israelis and Americans feel the same. It is so easy to dehumanize a group of people when a subset of that group are committing horrible acts of murder against your people. Let's hope that everyone involved in responding continues to make the correct distinction between the guilty and the innocent. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.com/
