For peace, apply the Golden Rule to Gaza and the Palestinian Authority

While surfing the internet one day last week--something I occasionally do to hunt down new opinions (either interesting or outrageous)--I came across a youtube video that attracted my attention. It was an excerpt from a presentation by US Conservative political personality Dinesh D'Souza. It was titled, "What's at stake". It was dated September 3, 2019 (here).

D'Souza tells a story in this video about US President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), the 16th President of the United States. Lincoln served between 1861 and April 1865, when he was assassinated one evening while attending a theatre performance in Washington, DC. This Lincoln story is the basis for a modest proposal I present to you regarding Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA), both of which are dedicated to the elimination of the Jewish state--Israel (or, as they put it, 'the Zionist entity'). 

D'Souza's story is about the US Civil war. This war, 1861-1865, is considered by many to be the bloodiest war in American history. This is to say that more US soldiers died in this war than in any other war in which US soldiers participated (here). Indeed, it may be possible to argue (depending upon whose numbers you use) that more US soldiers died in this war than in all other US wars combined (ibid). 

It was a war fought over the issue of black slavery. There were of course other issues pertinent to this conflict, but it seems safe to suggest that four of the important questions that brought about this war might be phrased this way: (1) was slavery moral? (2) do the economics of slavery justify its use? (3) who has the political right--and authority--to decide 'yes' or 'no' about slavery in a state? and (4) should newly forming Western territories be allowed to have slavery (here)?  

Southern states said, slavery was fine. The federal government, situated in the North, disagreed. 

Passions flared for years over these questions. By 1861, Southern states had had enough: key Southern states seceded from the United States. The war soon began.

D'Souza's story was set into this context. I can't verify the story.  However, the idea within this brief tale nonetheless serves as the foundation for my proposal because it speaks to what I believe is a universal truth about what a civilized, supposedly democratic nation must sometimes do to deal with the barbaric behavior of an enemy: apply the Golden Rule (or, at least, one version of that rule), and do unto the barbaric what they do to you--or seek to do to you). 

During the Civil War, D'Souza related, the Northern States began to deploy black soldiers to battlefields in the fight against the South. The South resented the use of blacks to fight the South. It deployed its own counter-policy: any black soldier captured by the South's (Confederate) army would be shot.  

This was not the case for white soldiers captured by the Confederacy.  But this [blacks fighting against the South] was such an affront to Southern sensibilities, the Confederacy decided to take this action. 

When this anti-black decision of the Confederacy came to the attention of President Lincoln, he issued an Executive Order. It is not very well know, but--D'Souza said--it was the most severe order (in his opinion) to come out of the Northern side during the war: for every black Union soldier executed by the Confederacy, Lincoln declared, one Confederate (Southern soldier) captive [held by the North] will be shot.

D'Souza asked, why would a moderate man [Lincoln] do such a barbaric thing?  The answer is, D'Souza said, Lincoln realized that you have to do to them what they are doing to you if you ever want them to stop--you have to do it [emphasis  mine]. 

My modest proposal is very simple: what Hamas and the PLO do to Israel, Israel should do to them. For example, Hamas captured two wounded or already-killed Israeli soldiers during the 2014 Gaza-Israel war. Contrary to all international laws regarding the treatment and return of wounded and deceased enemy soldiers, Hamas will absolutely not return what Israel now assumes are the bodies of these two men. 

Well, we should do to them what they do to us. Israel should announce that, from this moment forward, the bodies of all Arab terrorists killed by Israel--anytime, anywhere--will not be returned to their homes until all missing bodies of Israelis are returned. 

Israel should then announce that, from this moment forward, any rocket or shell randomly fired into Israeli communities from, say, a Gaza neighborhood, will be answered not by Israeli air strikes on pre-selected targets (which are often empty buildings). Instead, such random attacks on Israeli civilians will be answered by a rocket or shell fired randomly by Israel directly into that Gaza neighborhood from which each rocket or shell was fired. 

 The same should be true for terror coming out of the Palestinian Authority (PA): every murder of a Jew by an Arab terrorist from the PA should be matched by the execution of one PA terrorist (already convicted of murdering a Jew) currently held in an Israeli prison. 

Why should a supposedly modern democratic nation do such a barbaric thing? The answer is simple: it may well be the most convincing way to persuade a barbaric enemy to stop behaving barbarically.

In Judaism, this might be called, measure-for-measure. But it also echoes the Jewish Golden Rule which tells us, in at least one version, to do unto others what they do to you. Such a Rule seems especially appropriate in a region like the Arab Middle East where brutality and barbarity reign--and where there are few if any laws forbidding the killing of Jews.


Remember Lincoln's order. It offset the South's brutal decision to execute blacks. It also helped the North protect blacks in combat because, according to D'Souza, once Lincoln's Order went out, the South cancelled its decision to execute captured blacks.

My proposal, like Lincoln's order, redefines the terms of combat. It establishes clearly what Israel will do when attacked: it will do to the entity behind an attacker what that entity incited the attacker to do to Israel.

This is not rocket science. It's simple. In the brutal world of the Middle East, if Hamas and the PA want peace, the Golden Rule will give them peace. If they don't want peace, the Golden Rule will kill them.