Collective Punishment 1

It is, of course, a violation of international law to punish a person for a crime that they have not personally committed. How would Israelis feel if their family were punished for crimes that had been committed by one particular member of the family? Moreover, common sense tells us that all, of these crimes have their roots in one major crime, namely, the illegal occupation of the Arab land. Therefore, where does this start and where does it end? However, they are at it again in the knesset and the governmentis shouting for revenge after a Palestinian ran amok in his bulldozer and killed three and injured forty four.
In this case in particular we should really stop to think; there is no evidence that this was an organised attack. Indeed, it might very well be that Israel defining the attack as a terrorist attack is politically motivated, perhaps, perhaps, but, just as importantly, from the rather warped Israeli perspective, here was a man, a resident of East Jerusalem, who, held a blue (Israeli) identity card and who was a resident of the "annexed territories", losing control; his crime is made all the worse by the fact that he had legal residency and that he had rights that those beyond the wall and roadblocks do not. The suggestion is that the man had been given too much and that he should have been grateful. Legal residency, rights, tolerated, in what is in fact his own country and he should be grateful and now there are those suggesting that his family should suffer because he wasn't. The mind boggles!