FROM LEX TALIONIS TO BLOOD MONEY: A MODEST PROPOSAL Louis Rene Beres The Lex Talionis, or law of exact retaliation, was born in ancient Israel. Not, by any means, a bloodthirsty principle of vengeance, this seminal Jewish contribution to justice prescribes that an injury must be requited by a reciprocal injury, no less and no more. A law of compassion, not hatred, the Lex flows, inter alia, from the understanding that crime demands punishment and that unpunished crime pollutes the entire land. Significantly, this essential idea of retaliatory justice, of "an eye for a n eye, and a tooth for a tooth," has figured traditionally as a key element of defense policy for the current State of Israel. Today, however, the times are quickly changing. The Peres government, in stark contrast to ancient and contemporary Jewish commitments to the Lex, has decided not only not to punish major crimes against the people of Israel, but to reward such crimes extravagantly. Thus, terrorists who maim and murder Israeli citizens are able to remain altogether free from prosecution as government extradition requests are denied and, Oslo expectations notwithstanding, the government fails to insist upon compliance with these requests. What is more, those terrorists already in Israeli jails are now released en masse, and subsequently receive authoritative positions in the newly-created "Palestinian security services." For their crimes, the terrorists become policemen. To an extent, the Peres government's retreat from peremptory positions of Jewish justice was prefigured by a prior Israeli government's non-response to Arab aggression. When, during the Gulf War, Iraq launched 39 Scud missiles at Israeli noncombatant populations, with the express purpose of killing civilians, the reaction of the Jewish State was to absorb the attacks without any direct retaliatory response whatsoever. Justice, it seemed, would have to be left to the Americans. Not surprisingly, Saddam Hussein remains comfortably in place and Iraq has been able to claim, credibly, that it had demeaned and damaged Israel with complete impunity. Prime Minister Shimon Peres recently stated that he was "holding Syria responsible" for recent Katyusha rocket attacks on the Galilee. He said also that he was "holding the PLO responsible" for the ambush of two IDF reservists near Jenin. The PLO, more over, "has until March to amend its covenant (calling for Israel's destruction) or else...," said Peres. But all of these threats are hollow. Everyone now understands that Israel no longer holds anyone responsible for any killing of Jews. Rather, it is now universally recognized that Israel speaks loudly and carries a small stick, that nonretaliation--not exact retaliation--is Israel's order of the day. This brings me to a modest proposal. As the present government of Israel has fully abandoned any notions of dignity and justice for its Jewish citizens, permitting them to be slaughtered without even a hint of retaliation (often even without a hint of disapproval), why not inaugurate a policy of "blood money"? Here,

because of its unwillingness to behave decently, bravely and with honor, this government could now inform terrorists and aggressor states that Jerusalem would begin to accept material damages for Jewish lives. Hence, for the bombing of a bus on the streets of Tel Aviv or Ramat Gan, for example, the government could let it be known that it expects, say, 1000 shekels for each dead Jewish passenger and 500 shekels for each one who is merely wounded. Or for the launching of a missile into Haifa (one with only a conventional warhead, naturally), Israel would expect payment, from the offending Islamic state, of a similar schedule of compensation for Jewish fatalities and injuries. And why not? Israel has made it perfectly clear that longstanding notions of Jewish justice no longer obtain in its policy calculations, and that it no longer stands by the minimal standards of civilized world affairs. By invoking the practice of blood money, Israel would not be removing any national commitment to real justice--since no such commitment presently exists--but simply be substituting material damages for no justice at all. In this way, prospective victims of Islamic terror and/or war--tha t is, every current citizen of Israel--could know that there would be at least some compensation for crimes against Israelis. True, the compensation would be vulgar in the extreme, but vulgarity, in such circumstances, is the best these citizens can now expect. As for obvious violation of Torah (the Torah states that we cannot "accept ransom for a murderer....for blood, it pollutes the land, and no expiation can be made for the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood ! of him that shed it"), such violat ion will occasion little difficulty for a society whose fondest hope is to become Los Angeles. There is one last observation. By moving from nonretaliation to blood money conceptions of justice, the government of Israel would act in the fashion of certain other human communities. By no means would such a move be unprecedented. After all, blood money is accepted practice in parts of Somalia; by the Tonga tribe in Africa; by certain Bedouins of Libya; among the Australian aborigines; the Tauade of New Guinea and the Jivaro Indians of eastern Ecuador. No, Israel would not be alone. Blood money is an alternative to Lex Talionis. Israel has abanoned the Lex for a policy of "kill and terrorize us with impunity." Better, therefore, that Israel accept blood money than continue with a policy of "kill us and be rewarded." This is a dis graceful proposal, to be sure, and one that is advanced (obviously, I hope) with tongue firmly in cheek, but it is a relatively modest one.+ Louis Rene Beres is a professor of international law at Purdue University.