Q&A: Killing Innocent People During Wartime
Killing Innocent People During Wartime
Question
I read your article in Tzohar 14, “The Problem of the Relationship Between the Individual and the Collective and the ‘Defensive Shield’ Dilemma—in response to articles published in Tzohar 11–13.” How do you understand what is written in Deuteronomy, “the women, the children… you may take as spoil for yourself,” in contrast to the males? Can one infer from this that in a defensive war (not against the Canaanites), the permission—and obligation—to kill applies only to the males, but not to the women and children (even if all of them are a pursuing collective), and furthermore that this is also supported by the proof from the episode of Shechem, where too they killed only the males, and therefore one cannot prove it from that incident?
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. Obviously, if the danger can be prevented by killing the men, then only they are killed. My claim was that in principle all of them have the status of pursuers. Whether to act on that depends on the question of what is necessary in order to win. I wrote this in the article itself as well. By the way, it does not appear there in that passage that this is talking about a defensive war. On the contrary, we are laying siege to them.