Shock for an eye, awe for a tooth: Lex talionis discarded in Gaza
posted by Tim Nafziger on 12/28/08 at 11:06 PM
After spending an hour reading the news about Gaza, there's a lot of different blog posts I could write. I could write about the numbness and despair I feel as I watch the video camera meandering through the corpses of Palestinians. I could tell the stories I heard from Israelis and Palestinians when I went with a Christian Peacemaker Team delegation to Palestine in 2003. I could call on Hamas and Israel to give up on the myth of effective violence.
Instead, I'm going to lower my ambitions. I don't think the Israeli government (or the leadership of Hamas) is going to reconsider their use of violence anytime soon. So what if we measure them by standard of lex talionis or an eye for an eye? This is a controlled system for retribution found in Islam, Judaism and Christianity. In traditional societies, escalating revenge led to vendettas and feuds that could quickly dominated the social landscape.
By limiting retribution, an eye for an eye helped to shorten the length and depth of violent responses. It's not the only substitute for vengeance societies have developed, but it's the one in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
This basic principle has been completely abandoned by Israel in their attack on Gaza. There have been a total of 20 Israelis killed by rocket fire from Palestinians. In the last two days, over 200 Palestinians have been killed. That's 10 fold revenge. When asked by the BBC how she justified this, the Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni said:
Every day there are rockets firing at Israel, so thank God that we have we have the kind of losses that maybe it in terms of numbers is not the same as the situation in Gaza strip.
The story is not to count injuries here and there. The question is what will we stand, and what is their goal. We are trying to implement our right for self defense, we are trying to give an answer to our citizens who want to live in peace. (see BBC video)
In another interview she said: "When there's shooting, there's a response. Any state would react that way." (from Google). So, not only is she defending their massive retribution escalation in the name of peace, she is seeking to normalize it.
In "Vengeance is ours", Jared Diamond tells the story of a highland tribe in New Guinea where escalating revenge is the rule:
The war between the Handa clan and the Ombal clan began many years ago; how many, Daniel didn't say, and perhaps didn't know. It could easily have been several decades ago, or even in an earlier generation. Among Highland clans, each killing demands a revenge killing, so that a war goes on and on, unless political considerations cause it to be settled, or unless one clan is wiped out or flees. When I asked Daniel how the war that claimed his uncle's life began, he answered, "The original cause of the wars between the Handa and Ombal clans was a pig that ruined a garden." Surprisingly to outsiders, most Highland wars start ostensibly as a dispute over either pigs or women.
The article goes on to describe the way every child in the tribe is raised to hate their enemy and prepare for a life of war. Does that sound familiar? Many Palestinians and Israeli children are being raised in a culture saturated in revenge, hate and violence. Whether they are joining Hamas or the Israeli Defense Force, the values are remarkably similar: demonization of the enemy, preparation for perpetual war and ethnic cleansing as an implicit goal.
While my conviction is still that nonviolent social change is the answer in Israel/Palestine, it seems to me that for a consistent principle of proportional retribution could go a long way to reducing the death toll in the region.
Tim Nafziger is a activist, writer, organizer and web developer. He lives in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago with his wife Charletta where he attends Living Water Community Church. He is the administrator for the Young Anabaptist Radicals blog and serves as Outreach Coordinator for Christian Peacemaker Teams. For more about his life, read his first blog post.
Categories
- Current Events
- General
- Anabaptism in the UK
- Anabaptism in Australia
- Living Water Community Church
- Mennonites and Jews
- Mennonites and Pop Culture
- Poetry
- Photography
- Biographical
- Reviews
- Christian Peacemaker Teams
- Vietnam
- Why I love Chicago
- Immigration
- Technology
- The institutions of Mennonite Church USA
Blogs
Subscribe
A future for Palestinians based on racism? This is in response to the many calls for certain ways of peace in the Middle East regarding the Palestinians. There are some items and issues that you may not know about: If Arafat was able to call for a cease fire (as he did successfully in the past) and the Palestinian terrorists stop, then that means the opposite is true. If Arafat could stop the terrorists, he also had direct control over the terrorist attacks. Think about it. Even before the 1967 war that brought the "Green Line" into existence, Arafat formed the PLO in 1964 to kill Israeli Jews and destroy their homes and buildings. The reason I know that is that some of my relatives kept newspapers and magazines from that year. Even the press of the USA and other countries discussed Arafat's terrorist actions back in 1964, 1965, and 1966, which were before the Six Day War of 1967. Also recently Palestinian terrorists admitted to the foreign and American news media that they got their orders from Arafat! On the other side of the Israel/Palestinian issues are things like the following. The United Nations had schools for the Palestinians (such as in Siblin and other places) through the UNRWA. These school was actually photographed with Nazi swastikas and training schools on killing methods and terrorism with various materials there needed for their acts. I have a photograph of this school and a description of the activities in the Siblin school. The Palestinians even learned how to stuff toys that blew up lots of Jewish kids. The UN personnel to whom I talked to about this issue refuse to this day to deal with this deceptive evil. Also, Palestinians to whom I spoke at colleges in the south west USA, during the 1970s, mentioned these practices to me and other people. These Palestinians were brazen in their attitudes of wanting to kill Jews, even in America. How can anyone believe that it will be "wonderful" when Palestinians can live on both sides of the Green Line and Jews can ONLY live on ONE side of the Green Line? These are just some of the publicly stated goals that Arafat, PLO, Hamas, Hizbullah, and other terrorists and anti-Jewish groups in the Middle East established even BEFORE the 1967 Six Day War and still want. Just think, can it be possible that we are helping to get places like Shomron to be "Judenriden" or rid of the "filthy" Jews (as the PA and PLO have said), just like the Nazis did in certain areas of Europe? The Palestinian schools now teach the kids that they must rid ALL places of Jews, even Tel Aviv and every Israeli house. But then the world will reward these "politically correct" terrorists with a nation of their own. Even the Al Qaeda fighters know that the PA areas are good areas to move to and escape punishment. Look at the literature coming from the Palestinians and see how they view Israel soon disappearing completely under future wars. They have pictures and graphics of Palestinians stomping all Jews out of the Middle East, sometimes with blood flowing from Jewish bodies. We also have lots of records (evidence) of Arafat plotting and killing Jews even before the Six Day War of 1967 (that made the "Green Line"). Arafat and other Palestinians have planned and executed terrorists acts in the early 1960s and later years that killed innocent children and people even in other countries. Do you remember the September 1972 Olympics when Israeli athletes got killed? Who were the terrorist killers? If you know anything the Middle East, then you will see the connection to the September 11, 2001, attacks also. The picture is bigger than what you see. Recently many members of the Al Qaeda terrorist group are now slipping into the Palestinian areas. What makes the Palestinian areas so attractive to them? Why is the Palestinian Authority letting the Al Qaeda members into the Palestinian areas? Have you heard how Palestinian schools teach (openly and secretly) kids that no Jew can live in any area, including Tel Aviv and any Israeli town or any part of the Middle East? These goals will be achieved by killings and wars to "remove" the Jews permanently. The PA and PLO openly promote the eventual "cleansing" of all the area so that no Jew can live anywhere close to them. Even before 1947, Jewish people purchased several hundred thousand acres of land legitimately and legally in the 1920s and 1930s. But now the Palestinians deny that these purchases are valid anymore. They even have denied the very papers that they signed in the past. WHY? Most now are stating that they were "expelled" from the very lands by "evil" Jews. Previously they said they sold the land, now they say they were expelled. How convenient to change a story when it is "politically correct" and expedient to do so! Also, how come Palestinians are destroying Jewish archaeological items and artifacts on purpose, despite US Congressional protests? Israel now has international oversight from several universities and groups, but the PA can do as they well please. Why? Haven't you hear of the PA's public announcements that the Palestinians MUST get rid of any EVIDENCE of Jewish ancestry in the land? Consider that a number of Europeans, especially Germans, working for companies that are the "descendants" (daughter companies) of the manufacturers of the WWI and WWII German gas plants, had been secretly working with the PA and PLO to create poison gas weapons and small gas chambers. These companies were also working with Iraq before the Gulf War, helping them make weapons of mass destruction. I remember talking to Western construction companies' engineers working on projects for Iraq in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They talked about all the other "plants" being built to help the Arabs attack Israel. This was brought to the attention of the US Congress during the Gulf War, but to no avail. The desires for money and oil are "thicker" than morals. Please read the book, "From Time Immemorial," written by Joan Peters, published 1984, J. KAP publishing, ISBN 0-9636242-0-2. This book addresses some real historical and cultural issues that most news media personnel ignore. BUT even if you or others do NOT believe this book, it is hard or even impossible to disregard the evidence and writings from the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires and other early and late cultures and sources in this region from the many centuries of the past. Finally, think about the millions of donated money given to the PA and PLO from Europe! In the 1990s, there was one time when the European countries gave $400 million dollars to the Palestinians. What happened to that money and why are the people still so poor? Why is it that the Palestinian authorities ended up buying so many weapons with that money instead of feeding their own people??? BTW, the word 'Palestine' was started by the Roman emporer Hadrian to disenfranchise the Jewish people after the Temple's destruction and to contradict Biblical promises on their return by giving honor to the Bible enemies, the Philistines (Peleshtim in ancient times), which became Palestine. Christian leaders used this term to continue the mockery of Jews over the centuries as they were sure Jews would never return to the Land of Israel (but Christians were wrong).