An eye for an eye
The Old Testament prescription for justice -- an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot -- sounds barbarous. In reality, it represented a huge advance in enlightenment.
It established the principle of reciprocal justice. Under this law, it was not permissible to wipe out your neighbor's whole family if his son killed your son.
The "eye for an eye" formula wasn't really meant literally. It simply said that a proportional response to wrongdoing was appropriate -- not more.
We've heard a lot about proportionality since an attack into Israel by Lebanon-based Hezbollah prompted Israeli forces to retailiate with massive strikes into Lebanon, with Hezbollah in return firing hundreds of missiles into Israel, and the Israelis hitting back harder, and so on.
The idea of an eye for an eye has been discarded in favor of, "You poked me in the eye, so I'm going to knock your head off."
I do understand that Israel is determined to eliminate the threat posed by Hezbollah. It's not going to wait for Hezbollah to poke another eye, or break a nose, or knock out a few teeth and then seek reciprocal justice -- although, tragically, all that and worse is happening anyway.
It's a shame, and an irony, that it's all come to this. The law laid down by God no longer applies. Perhaps the time of enlightenment has passed.
An eye for an eye? If only it were that simple.
Comments (2)
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Doug, I keep hearing this "disproportionate response" thing and do wonder where people get this idea. A meaningless or false statement gets started and is repeated over and over until people believe it without giving it any thought or analysis. This is a response for all the suicide bombings and rockets fired into Israel by Hezbollah for the past 6 years. There is nothing "disproportionate" about it. In fact if anything it was long overdue. When the so- called sleeper cells of Hezbollah and other dangerous fanatic Islamic groups who have been infiltrating the United States and Canada finally come out of their holes I certainly hope our response is very disproportionate indeed.
Posted on August 8, 2006 11:40 AM
For that matter, I guess you could say our invasion of Afghanistan was disproportionate to 9/11. But it was necessary and justified.
Posted on August 8, 2006 12:26 PM