By: Abby Shapiro

Imagine the scenario: you’re at a wedding reception with your family and friends. Your older brother is a substance abuser, and your family has been attempting to get him into recovery. While at the reception, you hear a loud buzzing sound. Low and behold, a United States unmanned drone comes flying overhead. Before any action is taken, the drone destroys the reception and injures many while doing so. After a thorough investigation, your brother is named the suspect. Your family and you are viewed as evil.

Family members of terrorists experience this type of situation every day. Family members of terrorists are viewed as evil, dangerous, and malicious. According to The Hill, Donald Trump said, “The other thing is with the terrorists, you have to take out their families.” Trump meant that since the families are related to the terrorist, they must die.

Many Americans believe that the family members of terrorists are “in on it” or “know what’s going on” which most of the time, is not the case.

Although Trump’s views on this issue has been dismissed by many, according to the NY Times, in the Russian perspective, the family is the thread that needs to be pulled to unravel the terrorist group. Additionally, they say that Trump’s ideas on terrorist families have been pursued by the Russians for decades. It’s very clear that many countries are battling how to handle the family members of terrorists.

Many Americans agree with Trump and the Russians on their stance that thousands of innocent lives must be taken due to the fact of their relative is a terrorist, but this is not right and not what America needs.

“When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families,” Trump said.

Family members should never be to blame for their relative’s actions. A terrorist’s’ actions, most of the time, has absolutely no correlation to their family. We should not view the families of terrorists as dangerous.

The United States is not the only country affected by this issue. In Israel, i24 news reported, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday asked Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, to conduct a legal review of a procedure that would allow the state to expel family members of Palestinian terrorists to Gaza.”

“The issue drew additional attention this week when more than 100 Republican defense and national security figures, including former senior Pentagon officials, issued a statement blasting Trump’s foreign policy positions and calling his embrace of the expansive use of torture ‘inexcusable,’” said the New York Post.

In a GOP debate, which the Pentagon officials were referring to, Trump additionally added what kinds of torture he would allow on the families. “We should go for waterboarding, and we should go tougher than waterboarding,” Trump said. Waterboarding is a long and painful form of torture.

Family members of terrorists should never be put to blame for their relatives actions against our country or any other country for that matter. Blaming the families is ridiculous, ludicrous, and absurd.