---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 1:39 PM
Subject: re: One Palestinian’s Refusal to Eat Puts Israel in a Bind
To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
John Locke--who, more than any other individual, inspired America's Founding Fathers--found the Right to Die to be fundamental. Without it, the State has no legitimate power to imprison offenders. The U.S. has long divorced our policy of incarceration from this basis. And of course Israeli practice is in no way bound by our laws or by our constitution. But if the U.S. and Israel are to obey the Rule of Laws, and not of men, we need to ask soberly by what right we would shove a hose up a detainee's (or a prisoner's) nose. If it is only to spare the State the embarrassment of of a death in custody, maybe that custody was never legitimate.
John Locke--who, more than any other individual, inspired America's Founding Fathers--found the Right to Die to be fundamental. Without it, the State has no legitimate power to imprison offenders. The U.S. has long divorced our policy of incarceration from this basis. And of course Israeli practice is in no way bound by our laws or by our constitution. But if the U.S. and Israel are to obey the Rule of Laws, and not of men, we need to ask soberly by what right we would shove a hose up a detainee's (or a prisoner's) nose. If it is only to spare the State the embarrassment of of a death in custody, maybe that custody was never legitimate.
Barry Haskell Levine
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/world/middleeast/one-palestinians-refusal-to-eat-puts-israel-in-a-bind.html
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