Winnipeg Free Press | 11Mar2010 | Orest Slepokura
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/87318987.html

Collective punishment predicated on collective guilt

For decades now, collective punishment predicated on collective guilt has been a mainstay of Israeli government policy with its brutal treatment of Palestinians under Israeli military occupation. Such wholesale scapegoating to punish an entire population is, of course, illegal under international law.

It also negates the vital lessons of the Nazi Holocaust, which mandate that we not remain silent when confronted with clear evidence a state is inflicting collective punishment on a people based on some racial, religious, or other consideration; and that to remain a mute observer of such injustice is to give it tacit consent. That is the moral subtext of Israeli Apartheid Week.

OREST SLEPOKURA
Strathmore, Alta.