Smuggling Seed To Sow A Terrorist Future

After Shabbos was over, I turned my phone on and checked up on the news in the world. I came across this article on CNN.com called "Sperm smuggling alleged at terror prison." As soon as I began reading it, I was horrified, dismayed, and angry.

Wives of convicted (and often self-confessed and proud) Palestinian terrorists serving life or near-life sentences have arranged their incarcerated husbands' sperm to be smuggled out of the prison so that they can conceive children. They are denied conjugal visits, whereas Israeli prisoners are allowed such visits from their wives - though the only specific Israeli prisoner referenced was the assassin of Yitzchak Rabin.

It isn't fair, they say, to be denied the right to be with their husbands, who can then sire more children, all to prevent rumors being spread that they are unfaithful to their jailed husbands, or that their husbands may leave them for still-fertile women if their jail sentences last beyond the women's menopause.

I think the whole thing is utterly ridiculous.

Why, you ask? Because who are these children going to become, and how will they be brought up?

"You're father is a brave soldier, fighting for our freedom, he heroically murdered dozens of Jewish men, women, and children who all stole our homeland from us."

"You're going to grow up just like him!"

"Isn't it not fair that your dear father is still stuck in prison for doing the great thing that he did for us? We should be celebrating with him right now, not mourning is absence!"

This is what will happen to these poor, innocent children. They'll be raised and indoctrinated with hate, fear and prejudice. They'll be encouraged to take more life in murderous plots, just like their fathers did. The very same women who in all likelihood supported, encouraged, and cheered on the fathers who are sitting in jail will be the same women, along with other relatives, who will raise these children to hate Israel, despise Jews, and desire to kill and murder more people, in revenge for their fathers' mistreatment or just because it's the right thing to do.

I don't believe for a second that this is not the unspoken ulterior motive. If these women were already successful in helping groom their husbands to become terrorists, I have no doubt they will attempt to do so, using their husbands' absence as a motivational factor.

True, I wonder about why someone such as Yitzchak Rabin's assassin was allowed conjugal visits - shouldn't all murderers be deprived in this fashion as part of the punishment they are receiving in jail?

Part of me says yes, they should. Someone who takes another's life without just cause should lose privileges, just as they stole everything from the person(s) they killed.

However, the one difference I can see between the two criminals is that Rabin's assassin was a one-time wack job. He didn't grow up in a culture that celebrated and taught murder of other people as a cherished life value. He wasn't indoctrinated from preschool with lies and propaganda, all with the intention of turning him into a celebrated killer and martyr.

In all likelihood, as someone who became convinced of his crazy plan, he never confided in his wife or any relatives or associates. He deserves to be punished, rightly so, but his wife, innocent of all wrongdoing should not. She suffers enough for the crime that was thrust upon her and shattered her life in a most unexpected, and unwelcome fashion.

The women who are pleading their case about being denied conjugal visits with their terrorist husbands in jail were in all likelihood, part and parcel of the lifestyle that led their husbands to shed Jewish blood. They knew what their husbands intended to do, probably knew it was possible they'd be killed in the bombings they planned, or shot by the IDF defending innocent civilians, or caught and tried for their disgusting crimes. They don't feel an ounce of remorse for the lives lost by their husbands' actions, and I bet they'd encourage their husbands to do it again, given the chance to take more innocent Jewish lives. They educate their children to call their fathers a hero for what they did, to grow up to be just like them and do such courageous things like they did.

And that's why they don't deserve to have conjugal visits, or to bring more children into this world with their convicted terrorist husbands. They too, deserve to be punished, in their own way, for encouraging and supporting acts of terror and murder, for they are accomplices to the murders their husbands committed. There may not be enough evidence to convict these wives in a court of law, but I think this denial of access to their husbands' semen and thus more children from them, is a just enough punishment. Their continued loyalty and devotion to men who willingly and happily spilled innocent blood of men, women, and children who had done no wrong, is a testament to their guilt and reason enough to be denied conjugal visits.

I sincerely hope that these alleged claims are false, and that the Israeli courts do not give in to their ridiculous demands.