A Jew wants relatives of suicide bombers to be killed

Top Lawyer Urges Death For Families Of Bombers Lewin: 'A Policy Born of Necessity'

By Ami Eden, [Jewish] Forward, June 7, 2002

"A prominent Washington attorney and Jewish communal leader is calling for the execution of family members of suicide bombers. Nathan Lewin, an oft-mentioned candidate for a federal judgeship and legal advisor to several Orthodox organizations, told the Forward that such a policy would provide a much-needed deterrent against suicide attacks. Under the proposal, which Lewin unveiled in the current issue of the opinion journal Sh'ma, family members would be spared if they immediately condemned the bombing and refused financial compensation for the loss of their relative. (Lewin's article appears on the web at http://www.shma.com/may02/nathan.htm.) While a 20-month spate of suicide bombings has been met in the Jewish community with calls for increasingly Draconian preventive measures, Lewin appears to be the first Jewish communal leader to approve publicly of the concept of executing innocent civilians in the hopes of curbing terrorism ... Lewin argued that the biblical injunction to destroy the ancient tribe of Amalek serves as a precedent in Judaism for taking measures that are 'ordinarily unacceptable' in the face of a mortal threat ... Several leading Jewish figures, including Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, argued that the plan represented a legitimate if flawed attempt to strike a balance between preventing terrorism and preserving democratic norms. But the proposal was strongly condemned by the head of the Reform movement, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, and the executive vice chairwoman of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Hannah Rosenthal ... In an article that appeared in the Sh'ma journal alongside Lewin's essay, Brandeis University Jewish studies professor Arthur Green wrote, 'I only wonder how long it will take [Lewin], by the force of this proof-text, to go all the way and suggest that the Palestinian nation as a whole has earned the fate of Amalek [genocide]' ... Dershowitz and Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, rejected the notion that Lewin should be elbowed out of communal life. They argued that his proposal represented a legitimate attempt to forge a policy for stopping terrorism. Foxman declined to take a stand on the actual proposal, citing his policy of deferring to Jerusalem on Israeli security issues. Though they declined to endorse the controversial proposal, top officials at the O.U. and Agudath Israel of America, for whom Lewin has done legal work, expressed sympathy for Lewin's efforts to curb what they described as an unprecedented wave of suicide attacks in Israel. '[Lewin] is not a Kahanist; he is not a nut,' said Richard Stone, chair of the O.U.'s Institute of Public Affairs ... Rabbi William Altshul, headmaster of the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy, a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school in Washington, D.C., told the Forward that he did not regret the decision to honor Lewin this week at the school's annual dinner ... Even as several observers rejected the notion of blackballing Lewin, they offered substantive critiques of his argument. Dershowitz, author of 'Why Terrorism Works' (Yale University Press, 2002), and terrorism researcher Steven Emerson, who both favor the limited use of torture to extract information about an impending terrorist attack, said that they balked at the execution of innocent civilians ... Dershowitz argued that the same level of deterrence could be achieved by leveling the villages of suicide bombers after the residents had been given a chance to evacuate (an idea Lewin disparagingly likened to "using aspirin to treat brain cancer"). Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of Orthodox Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, N.J., a trained lawyer known for hawkish views on Israeli security issues, argued that a policy of mass deportations, rather than executions, could serve as an effective, but less deadly, deterrent against future attacks. Several observers defended Lewin by noting that the United States killed tens of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

RETURN TO JTR HOME PAGE

When Victims Rule. A Critique of Jewish pre-eminence in America
2,000 page scholarly work featuring approximately 10,000 citations from about 4,000 bibliographic sources.
The most thorough investigation to this day on Jewish power and influence in the USA and the world.