The ethics of revenge — by a father who lost his son

A speech made by Yitzhak Frankenthal, Chairman of the Families Forum, at 
a rally in Jerusalem on Saturday, July 27, 2002, outside the Israeli Prime 
Minister's residence.

My beloved son Arik, my own flesh and blood, was murdered by Palestinians. 
My tall blue-eyed golden-haired son who was always smiling with the 
innocence of a child and the understanding of an adult. My son. If to hit 
his killers, innocent Palestinian children and other civilians would have 
to be killed, I would ask the security forces to wait for another 
opportunity. If the security forces were to kill innocent Palestinians as 
well, I would tell them they were no better than my son's killers.

My beloved son Arik was murdered by a Palestinian.

Should the security forces have information of this murderer's whereabouts, 
and should it turn out that he was surrounded by innocent children and 
other Palestinian civilians, then — even if the security forces knew that 
the killer was planning another murderous attack that was to be launched 
within hours and they now had the choice of curbing a terror attack that 
would kill innocent Israeli civilians but at the cost of hitting innocent 
Palestinians, I would tell the security forces not to seek revenge but to 
try to avoid and prevent the death of innocent civilians, be they Israelis 
or Palestinians.

I would rather have the finger that pushes the trigger or the button that 
drops the bomb tremble before it kills my son's murderer, than for innocent 
civilians to be killed.

I would say to the security forces: do not kill the killer. Rather, bring 
him before an Israeli court. You are not the judiciary. Your only 
motivation should not be vengeance, but the prevention of any injury to 
innocent civilians.

Ethics are not black and white — they are all white. Ethics have to be 
free of vengefulness and rashness. Every act must be carefully weighed 
before a decision is made to see whether it meets the strict ethical 
criteria.

Ethics cannot be left to the discretion of anyone who is frivolous or 
trigger-happy. Our ethics are hanging by a thread, at the mercy of every 
soldier and politician. I am not at all sure that I am willing to delegate 
my ethics to them.

It is unethical to kill innocent Israeli or Palestinian women and children. 
It is also unethical to control another nation and to lead it to lose its 
humaneness. It is patently unethical to drop a bomb that kills innocent 
Palestinians. It is blatantly unethical to wreak vengeance upon innocent 
bystanders.

It is, on the other hand, supremely ethical to prevent the death of any 
human being. But if such prevention causes the futile death of others, the 
ethical foundation for such prevention is lost.

A nation that cannot draw the line and it is doomed to eventually apply 
unethical measures against its own people.

The worst in my mind is not what has already happened but what I am sure 
one day will. And it will — because ethics are now being twisted and the 
political and military leadership does not even have the most basic 
integrity to say: "we are sorry".

We lost sight of our ethics long before the suicide bombings. The breaking 
point was when we started to control another nation.

My son Arik was born into a democracy with a chance for a decent, settled 
life. Arik's killer was born into an appalling occupation, into an ethical 
chaos. Had my son been born in his stead, he may have ended up doing the 
same.

Had I myself been born into the political and ethical chaos that is the 
Palestinians' daily reality, I would certainly have tried to kill and hurt 
the occupier; had I not, I would have betrayed my essence as a free man.

Let all the self-righteous who speak of ruthless Palestinian murderers take 
a hard look in the mirror and ask themselves what they would have done had 
they been the ones living under occupation.

I can say for myself that I, Yitzhak Frankenthal, would have undoubtedly 
become a freedom fighter and would have killed as many on the other side as 
I possibly could.

It is this depraved hypocrisy that pushes the Palestinians to fight us 
relentlessly. Our double standard that allows us to boast the highest 
military ethics, while the same military slays innocent children. This lack 
of ethics is bound to corrupt us.

My son Arik was murdered when he was a soldier by Palestinian fighters who 
believed in the ethical basis of their struggle against the occupation. My 
son Arik was not murdered because he was Jewish but because he is part of 
the nation that occupies the territory of another.

I know these are concepts that are unpalatable, but I must voice them loud 
and clear, because they come from my heart — the heart of a father whose 
son did not get to live because his people were blinded with power.

As much as I would like to do so, I cannot say that the Palestinians are to 
blame for my son's death. That would be the easy way out, but it is we, 
Israelis, who are to blame because of the occupation. Anyone who refuses to 
heed this awful truth will eventually lead to our destruction.

The Palestinians cannot drive us away — they have long acknowledged our 
existence. They have been ready to make peace with us; it is we who are 
unwilling to make peace with them. It is we who insist on maintaining our 
control over them; it is we who escalate the situation in the region and 
feed the cycle of bloodshed.

I regret to say it, but the blame is entirely ours.

I do not mean to absolve the Palestinians and by no means justify attacks 
against Israeli civilians. No attack against civilians can be condoned. But 
as an occupation force it is we who trample over human dignity, it is we 
who crush the liberty of Palestinians and it is we who push an entire 
nation to crazy acts of despair.

Finally, I call on my brothers and sisters in the settlements — see what 
we have come to.

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Tikun Magazine