Children are always born innocent and slowly turn into criminals as a part of our reality. However, this is not what the General Security Service of Israel (The Shin-Bet) when it made a foul move and used family members and relatives of suspects in order to exercise pressure over them (and we all recall how generous the Shin Bet is to suspects, as seen in the picture). The Foul move, which might even be worse than Guantanamo Bay Prison means that Israel has no moral right to go against Palestinians who shoot Qasams from within civil areas.

The Shin Bet decided, that due to the rare situation, it may act against a detainee and tell him that his family is imprisoned as well. (full Hebrew Report). The audacity that the Shin Bet exercised pressure over detainees with threats on their family members is no different than the “Neighbour Drill” which was deemed unconstitutional by the Israeli Supreme Court. The way that national security is being taken in Israel is: If it’s national security, it has to be for our behalf and we must do everything.

There is no reason to use a person’s family in order to extort information from him, not even if this is a ticking bomb. Using family members in order to extort information not only will cause false confessions, but also places the family members in the same danger we are trying to prevent; and as such, we are no different than the ones standing against us in this war. Democracy is the moral fiber which is both the enabler and the enablee of the democratic society.

Even though the Israeli Supreme court already acknowledged the right to collective punishment in Israel (HCJ 698/85 Dejeles v. Military Commander, HCJ 8575/03 Azadin v. The Military Commander, HCJ 610/89 Bachri v. The Military Commander), these decisions were since the court stated that sealing down suspects’ houses as a preventive measure and not as a punishment. However, the latest court decision, explaining why the Government may disconnect Gaza from electricity, (HCJ 9132/07 Albasiyouni v. The State of Israel where Hon. Justice Dorit Beinish said:

Indeed, in times of war, such as in this case, the civil population is stuck against it’s benefit and good to an area where fighting occurs, and it is the primary victim of the state of war, even when efforts are being made to reduce it’s damage. Even in the territory of the state of Israel, while terror attacks are taking place, the primary victim of this state of war is the Civil Population. However, In all relating to actions against Israel it is not a random or consequential damage, but frequent terror attacks targeted against the civil society and meant to hurt innocent civilians. This is the main difference between the state of Israel, a democratic country fighting for it’s life with the legal means, and to the fighting of the terror organisations against it “The state fights in the name of the law and in order to keep it. Terrorists fight while violating the law and against it. The war against terror is the Law’s fight as well against those who come against is

So are we better than terrorists or just dress better?
האם אנחנו באמת טובים מהפלשתינאים או רק לובשים בגדים נקיים יותר?