Posted on 07/02/2002 7:58:31 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
My commentary on June 22, 2002, proposing that Palestinian parents who aid and abet their children in becoming mass murderers be held responsible for their complicity in these crimes, drew more e-mail than any of my previous columns in WND. Most thought it was a great idea, but doubted that it would be implemented. One wrote:
People who cause their children to be suicide bombers are like those who in times past made their children "pass through the fire" or given to be sacrificed to Molech, the god of the Ammonites. Leviticus specifies that the people who do such things must be put to death, usually by stoning.
Another reader wrote:
Good idea, except you're dealing with Muslims. Muslim parents would simply feel they were additional martyrs. Muslim children would become more eager, since they believe they will see their parents in a few days. … Islam is terror, its first victims are Muslims.
An Israeli wrote:
You should be aware that even for the crime of murder there is no death penalty in Israel. … I absolutely agree that the family of the suicide terrorist must not profit from his misdeed. The money should be confiscated and distributed to the victims … Also, I believe that the homes of terrorists should be confiscated, [sold] at a reasonable value which is then turned over to the victims' families, and that Jews should be settled in them.
A reader offered this suggestion:
Fantastic idea! And even if the Israelis will not execute, the confiscation of money, housing, cars, and so on, is a perfectly legal measure. However, what is much simpler – and much easier – than proving guilt in a criminal case is to pursue the issue as a civil matter. [He then referred to the O.J. Simpson case as an example.] The families of the bomber's victims would need to file suit, but this should not present any great problem given the present situation.
Hamas and other groups have claimed credit for some of these atrocities. These groups have some kind of standing among Palestinians, and therefore could be held responsible by a civil court and forced to pay damages. But since this is a war, the responsible groups could easily ignore what any court says.
A reader who took issue with my views wrote:
Why don't all dual loyalist Jews, such as yourself, cease the pretense that they hold primary fealty to America, and have the integrity to migrate to Israel and there find ways to solve the Mideast problems they have created. Rather than executing the suicide bomber's parents, why not force Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders and halt its 35-year-long military occupation of Arab lands?
The idea that American Jews who favor Israel have dual loyalty is an old and stupid argument. Anyone who believes in the Bible has a dual loyalty between God and his country. I consider myself to be an American patriot. I fought in the Army in World War II. I revere our Founding Fathers, particularly George Washington, whose portrait hung in my public-school classrooms, and I love the biblical principles on which this greatest of nations was founded. There is no conflict between being an American and favoring the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland.
Until the war in 1948, in which the Arabs tried to kill the newborn Jewish state, every piece of land the Jews had was purchased from previous owners. However, when the Arabs lost that war, Israel inherited all of the public-domain lands of the Ottoman Empire in Palestine and took control of the lands and houses abandoned by the Arabs who fled. Since the Arab states have refused to recognize Israel or make peace with it, the Arab refugees have remained in camps to this very day – 50 years later.
Meanwhile, Jews from Arab countries have migrated to Israel, occupying many of the abandoned properties. Who took control of the property that the Jews left behind? No one seems to know.
The return of the Jews to their ancient homeland is one of the great miracles of the 20th century, a miracle that many Christian Americans acknowledge and rejoice in. American Christians have always had a strong spiritual affinity with the Holy Land. However, their loyalty to America has never been questioned. God, Family, and Country represent the triune loyalty that all believing Americans adhere to. There is no divided loyalty.
Of course another way of looking at it is that in '67, Israel was ending a 19 year occupation of its lands by the Jordanians. Certainly the agreements between Jews and Arabs (the grandfather of the current Jordanian monarch) in the 20s indicated that the Jews were to have all the land from the Jordon to the Med. Every wonder why there were/are refugee camps in the West Bank, if that is the "homeland" of the so called Palistinian Arabs, while there are no camps for Jewish refugees from Arab countries, or even non Arab ones like the former Soviet Union.
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