Castration of terrorists

Hey Miki
The field guard in the kibbutz - Meir Shafir, caught Bedouin grain thieves in the early 1940s, he stripped them naked, and so they returned to their camp, and since then there has been peace in the fields.
Around the same time, an Arab resident of Beit Shean raped a Jewish woman from one of the kibbutzim in the area.
Palmach men caught him and castrated him.
But when in 1992 the cowboys of Moshav Moledet caught 2 Palestinian Arabs in their pastures, they assumed they had come to steal cattle, stripped them and painted them green, the Palestinians complained to the police, and the cowboys from Moledet were sentenced to prison and to pay compensation to the Palestinians. At the time, I was a volunteer in the Border Guard, and we, the "persistents", felt very frustrated by this sentence, because we had to deal with many thefts.
As outrageous as this verdict may seem, it must be understood that the cowboys took the law and justice into their own hands without anyone authorizing them to do so and without even having evidence against the suspects!
In response to my proposal to castrate murderers, you mentioned a proposal that was rejected - to bury Muslim murderers wrapped in pigskin.
For the sake of the discussion, I am ignoring the question of whether these murderers will be executed as punishment, or killed in a firefight with the security forces, in which case they may not be considered murderers at all. In any case, Muslim clerics will be happy to issue a fatwa stating that these are martyrs, and therefore entitled to paradise and 72 virgins.
But if a murderer is castrated, he will have a problem with social norms, the validity of which, as you know, exceeds religious ones!
I treat any punishment system as a weapon - and therefore, like any weapon, no matter how sophisticated, we must take into account its expiration date: at some point a countermeasure will be designed to neutralize our weapon. In this case, of course, I mean some kind of ideological weapon.
And as is my custom in the Holy Land, I will jump from here to a different matter:
The laws of the State of Israel are largely similar to the laws of other Western countries. And the fact is that in most Western countries the death penalty has been abolished. But it seems that today more and more thinkers in the West are wondering whether there is no need to recalculate the course with regard to the wave of terrorism. Due to terrorism being a global problem, there is security coordination between most Western countries. But perhaps it would be good to try to coordinate international sanctions.
Here is an example - if a situation were to arise in which it would be agreed by the majority that in the State of Israel there would be a castration penalty for murderers [assuming that most terrorist perpetrators are men!], a terrible uproar would arise in the Western world that would cause Israel to be ostracized.
Therefore, it would be good to prepare the theoretical infrastructure - to hold discussions in which thinkers from all over the world would participate and try to find effective solutions against terrorists that would meet, as much as possible, the criteria of ethics and philosophy.
It seems to me that in such a situation, even if the discussions in the global forum that I propose do not succeed in yielding a solution, then the situation of the State of Israel would be better than if it unilaterally decided on very vulgar punitive measures - not least if the announcement of the implementation of this punishment were accompanied and responded to with explanations about the security and moral dilemmas that we face.
I mentioned the “expiration date” of weapons - which is relevant to methods of punishment - which may be effective for a certain period of time, because surely over time the terrorists will find a way to overcome this punishment.
Here my worldview regarding the purpose of the mitzvah of Yishuv A’Y comes into play: I have already raised the argument several times that the definition of the unintentional murderer greatly sharpens our obligation to “turn over every stone” in order to prevent unintentional killing.
And I want to apply this matter to the mitzvah of Yishuv A’Y, because the implementation of this mitzvah causes us to be challenged in many situations filled with violence. Violence that I am sure could often have been prevented or significantly reduced by more balanced thinking.
And this is where we - the people of Israel - can initiate the beginning of a discussion similar to the one I suggested earlier - an ongoing dialogue in which thinkers and statesmen from all nations and religions will participate, the main purpose of which is to search for ways to reduce violence in the world as much as possible.
I think that the last 20 years in the history of the human race have given us bloody lessons in insights into the limitations of goodwill. Documentation has also been uncovered, and books have appeared such as McNamara's book, who was the US Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, who admitted that this war could have been, if not prevented altogether, at least significantly reduced.
All of this is supposed to teach us what horrible traps incorrect or distorted norms of conduct among senior decision-makers can lead to. I did not mention the “March of Folly” Barbara Tuchman's - because I haven't read it, but from my late in-laws I've heard a lot about it and the lessons it provides.
The least bad political system - democracy - assumes that the electorate is intelligent enough to choose the right leaders. This is of course only true for countries that are truly democratic, as opposed to countries where the parties are nothing more than an expression of tribal cohesion. I raised the issue of democracy because I think it is essential that candidates for "running" for senior state positions demonstrate knowledge and understanding of ethics and history from modern times onwards.
The hubris of the State of Israel after the Six-Day War constantly resonates in my mind,
All of these are issues that we - an ancient people with a tradition of improving the world - can and must bring to the global political discourse.
Regarding tradition - perhaps it is more correct and meaningful to emphasize the tradition of study in depth and reflection, which if directed towards understanding the various causes of violence in the world and the commitment to seek solutions, the very existence of the State of Israel will have a universal human value.
For from Zion will come Torah and the law’
All the best

Hello.
I will begin this clarification in one of the upcoming columns, but I will excuse myself from answering here.
This is the place to surprise you. I definitely agree that a discussion about punishment and morality is important, unlike the other discussion you suggested about peace and against violence.
I thought to myself, what is the difference? I found at least two differences:
1. Morality comes from ”above” that is, from people of thought and spirit, and from them it is passed on to the public. But violence comes from ”below”, and therefore learned discussions about violence and peace will not help.
2. Regarding peace and violence, the result of the discussions is trivial. Everyone will agree that peace is good and violence is bad. But precisely because of this, nothing will change. On the other hand, moral values from the head (as opposed to the gut) are probably not something so trivial, and therefore such a discussion can give people something new they hadn't thought about and perhaps make them reconsider their path.

Hi  Miki
A few weeks ago, R’ asked me to make a salad for our oldest daughter and her boyfriend.

R’ said that I should cut the cucumbers not into thin slices, but just a little so that I could put the cucumber pieces into the salad slicer, and then I just had to turn the handle, and the cucumbers would be sliced. Ok-  I understood and that’s what I wanted to do, but my hands were used to slicing the cucumber into thin slices, so- because for decades – the moment I get a cucumber in one hand and a knife in the other, my hands know how to slice thinly, and they’re not ready for me to tell them what to do!   And so, to my dismay and my heart’s content [also R’’s], I cut thin slices!
I remembered this event after reviewing the calculations the engineer had made regarding my invention.
During our meeting, I was impressed that he understood my conceptual essence well, to the point that he suggested an idea to make the structure simpler. But when he did the calculations, the basis for his calculations was the fan, so it turns out that he was already used to calculating the lift caused by a fan [propeller] in the way that lift caused by a helicopter is calculated - that is, to refer to the downward thrust of the air flow, which is irrelevant in the case of my idea, which is based on the area of the fan, so just as habit dictated to me how to cut the cucumber, habit dictated to him how to perform the calculation, now I will have to wait until the 20th of the month, when he will return from vacation.
To avoid further frustration, I console myself that this is not a coincidence, but the original intention of God!
Finally, in my previous letter you referred to my words regarding our commitment to contribute to the reduction of violence and claimed that:
2. Regarding peace and violence, the outcome of the discussions is trivial. Everyone will agree that peace is good and violence is bad. But precisely because of this, nothing will change.
My response was:
I proposed discussing how to reduce violence and claimed that one way is to learn from history what not to do - for example, it is not worth waiting for a phone call from a defeated enemy who will declare that he promises to be a good boy.
And it is advisable not to fantasize about regime change - see Eric Sharon's article in Lebanon or the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by the Americans, without them understanding what they were going for. Shall I give more examples?
I hoped and still hope that you would address these things.
Now that I think about it again, it occurred to me that perhaps there would be a need to establish a binding norm in countries with democratic governments, such that just as it is not possible to elect a person to power who has been proven to be corrupt or violent, candidates would be required to demonstrate proficiency in the world history of the last 150 years, which is most relevant to the challenges of today's government.
It just occurred to me that the current situation in the world requires that any claimant to power in any country today should take a course on the history of Islam so that he can understand this religion in all its complexities, and know what challenges and opportunities it poses to him!
So all the best and Happy Shabbat Shalom

When you show me one thing that has been learned from history and it is agreed upon, maybe there will be something to talk about. No one learns anything from history, and it always reinforces what we all thought from the beginning. As Ben-Gurion already said, all experts are experts in what was, not what will be.
By the way, even the lesson you yourself brought (to wait for a phone call from a defeated enemy) cannot be learned from history. You have a few specific examples in front of you (like Germany after the First World War), and they are really not representative for many reasons. The same goes for the change of government. In short, studying history is like studying the Bible (= interesting but lacking any practical and educational value). Everyone takes from there what they thought beforehand. So too with us, every event is considered by the left as reinforcement of its system and by the right as reinforcement of its system.

Wallah - your words align with the results of a study I read about people's unwillingness to vaccinate their children against childhood diseases.
We did a systematic experiment with control groups and so on, once people got hooked on a certain idea - they couldn't be swayed from their minds again.
What do you think - maybe one of the characteristics of the days of the Messiah will be a willingness to change attitudes?

Maybe. Let's hope.