Breeding Hate

Salon has a story today regarding the forced deportations of the family members of Palestinian suicide bombers. Two relatives of a suicide bomber are being forcefully deported from their homes. These two people were apparently accessoried to the bombing.

The court said Intisar and Kifah Ajouri had advance knowledge of the attack. The army has said Intisar Ajouri sewed the explosives belts for the bombing.

Fine. Then charge them with that crime, don't just expel them because of an accident of birth. Persecuting someone unfairly (yes, even a guilty person can be treated unfairly) only leads to more hate.

Two days after the Tel Aviv bombing, army bulldozers demolished the family's three-story home with six apartments -- five for Mrs. Ajouri's five sons and their families, and one for Mrs. Ajouri, her husband and their unmarried daughter, Intisar.

"That (the demolition) was not enough for them. They want to kill everyone in the family by deportation," Mrs. Ajouri said. Ali Ajouri was killed in an Israeli army strike Aug. 6.



How many more "fighters against oppression" does the Israeli government want to create? Suicide bombing is a monstrous, horrible, inhuman act. But if Israel's goal (well, the government of Israel's goal) is to restore order and end the cycle of death, this is exactly the opposite kind of thing they should be doing.

In the United States, if the government knows where a murderer is, they arrest him. In Israel, they blow up his apartment building, killing a bunch of little kids inside. Then, in order to "make things right" some Palestinian teenager enraged by this act will explode himself in a shopping mall, killing a bunch of people who where committing the crime of going shopping. That is, if an Israeli soldier doesn't shoot him and the 5 innocent Palestinian bystanders standing next to him first.

I'm so depressed today...