Q&A: Revoking benefits from terrorists’ families
Revoking benefits from terrorists’ families
Question
Today the government approved a proposal to examine revoking National Insurance benefits from the families of terrorists. I wanted to ask: is it moral to withhold benefits from the terrorist’s children, who are not guilty of their father’s actions? And if the answer is that it is indeed not moral, but that the benefit of deterring terrorists and saving the lives of many Israelis is more important than continuing benefits to innocent children, then can one on that basis justify terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli civilians—where that too is immoral, but the benefit of resistance and expelling the State of Israel is considered more important than the few civilians who will die?
Answer
This is a baseless comparison, even though each side of it can be stated.
Revoking the benefits is justified as a deterrent. Terrorists’ actions are certainly justified from their point of view in order to drive us out. But we do not need to accept their position on the matter. And the comparison between the two is groundless. In both cases this is a matter of one value against another, but the question of which value prevails depends on each of our scales of values, and the scales are not necessarily the same.
Discussion on Answer
Okay, that brings us to the question of whether to judge a person by his own standards. I devoted a detailed column to this, number 372.
But if you don’t judge him by his own standards, then again there is no contradiction.
So if the Palestinians are right and we really do need to get out of the Land of Israel (or at least Judea and Samaria), then you think attacks are legitimate?
I referred you to column 372. See there.
Aside from the position in the aforementioned column, one can also discuss it from your standpoint: if some fellow comes along (the IDF) and threatens to murder me (a Palestinian) unless I let him steal a shekel from me (sovereignty over land) that belongs to me, then it is permitted (morally too!) to carry out a targeted killing against him. And in that sense all Israeli citizens living in Israel and paying taxes in Israel bear some “responsibility” for that same fellow’s demand. [Except that even if one were to say that someone is allowed to kill me and that I am obligated to comply with his demands or not interfere with him killing me, that still doesn’t mean I have to bare my neck for slaughter for the sake of the unity of pure morality, may its soul be bound up in the bond of life.]
I don’t mean to compare the immorality of murder with the immorality of revoking benefits. What I mean is the comparison between how we view ourselves as moral despite doing an immoral act for a moral purpose, and how we view them when they do the same thing (again, not the same act but the same way of thinking) and call them human beasts and the like.