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.