Maybe you remember an incident like this from your schooldays. Someone in your class has done something wrong, like pass around a caricature of the principal, and the teacher decides to punish the whole class by taking away your recess. Maybe this is done to force the culprit to confess, or to pressure you and your classmates to point the finger. It’s a clever method of drafting students to help police the classroom.

Such tactics of collective punishment have fallen out of favor for obvious reasons. They’re unfair. They don’t change behavior. They teach all the wrong lessons and make kids hate school.

Oh, and such tactics are also against the Geneva Conventions. According to an article of the Conventions related to the status and treatment of protected persons, “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

It might seem ridiculous to apply the Geneva Conventions to the classroom, even if some schools resemble warzones. But there has been a recent trend to condemn the tactics of collective punishment at schools and reference the principles designed to safeguard civilians.

Even as the classroom becomes more respectful of children’s rights, the world of geopolitics has continued to embrace principles of collective punishment. What is war, ultimately, but the punishment of the entire population for the actions of the few? Economic sanctions, even the supposedly “smart” variety, end up hurting people who have nothing to do with the policies of their leaders. And all those “beautiful” tariffs end up raising prices for millions of consumers who are not connected in the least to the practices of government or corporations.

But there is no more egregious example of collective punishment in the world today than the tragedy currently unfolding in Gaza.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas carried out a horrifying attack on Israel that left over a thousand dead and over 200 in captivity. Israel almost immediately declared war on Hamas. It then set about forcing all the residents of Gaza to pay for the crimes of a few.

The punishment has been appalling. More than 52,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces, according to the Gaza health ministry. But this number is probably an undercount by 40........

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