Death penalty will save lives

Op-d: No reason why Israel shouldn’t execute terrorists who murdered innocent, defenseless civilians

Gideon Friedman, YNET

Ahead of the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians Israel is being asked to release numerous murderers as a “gesture.” This is very difficult because we are talking about terrorists who murdered many civilians. Some of them are even Israeli citizens who were tried here like any other prisoner, so why should they be released? 

First of all, we should internalize the fact that this is not about making a gesture – there is a deal at play here. The release of prisoners as part of the negotiations is far more worthy than releasing prisoners as part of a deal to return kidnapped soldiers or civilians. At least here there is hope that the release, and the subsequent talks, will reduce the number of casualties in the future. 

In stark contrast to deals that include the release of murderers in exchange for kidnapped Israelis or bodies of Israelis, this type of deal does not encourage more abductions. On the contrary, it may even encourage additional peace-making activity. Meaning, such a gesture encourages the more moderate elements on the Palestinian side rather than the extremist and violent ones. This deal should be viewed as an extension of the Gilad Shalit deal in which Israel accepted Hamas ‘ demands. Now Fatah is asking for its share. 

The release of prisoners is also part of a deal in which the other side allowed Netanyahu not to declare a settlement construction freeze and the resumption of talks based on the 1967 lines. This was important to the prime minister. 

The release of prisoners offers another opportunity to impose the death penalty on terrorist murderers. This is the time to pass legislation stating that those who murder civilians in an act of hate or terror will be executed. There is no reason why someone who is willing to kill innocent and defenseless people only on the basis of his hatred for the other should not be killed himself. 

By introducing capital punishment we will also be avoiding any future dispute regarding the release of prisoners with blood on their hands. It may also deter some potential terrorists. And even more importantly, the death penalty will reduce the other side’s motivation to carry out acts of terror with the ultimate goal of releasing prisoners held by Israel.

We have seen again and again that frameworks or red lines cannot be determined in advance when it comes to negotiations on the release of murderers. We’ve experienced this during the Shalit prisoner exchange deal. But even this time around, after the government adopted the recommendations of the Shamgar Commission, the conclusion is that the government cannot be bound by such guidelines, reasonable as they may be. In the end, the emotional aspect overcomes the practical one.

Now is the time to enact a death penalty law. It will gain broad public support and may also relieve, to some extent, the pain of the released prisoners’ victims. I believe the international community will accept such a decision by Israel due to the current release of prisoners and the resumption of peace negotiations. 

In the name of justice and equality, and in order to shore up support for the legislation, Israel must make it clear that the law will also apply to Jewish terrorists who murder Arabs in acts of hatred or revenge.

August 6, 2013 | 30 Comments »

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30 Comments / 30 Comments

  2. yamit82 Said:

    “JEWS WITH GUNS, A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN”

    Jews live in disporia,Israelis live in Israel. Your thinking like an American.sugar.

  7. yamit82 Said:

    which was in the mid 60?s

    Why the mid-60s the bomb was developed in the mid-40s wasn;t it? Which bomb? Now I don’t understand you?

  8. @ honeybee:

    Sorry bee but I still don’t get the point. All I said was that “I would nuke Germany once we got the Bomb” which was in the mid 60’s.

  9. NormanF Said:

    Hilarious – Israel’s leftist Attorney General has never paid the slightest attention to the elite’s breaking of the country’s laws in their own interests. Israel is an elected dictatorship. The government neither cares about public opinion, street protests or dissent. It does what it wants. And its a good deal more powerful than the Communist Party Of The Soviet Union was at its height when it ruled the country. The one thing Israel does not have is the rule of law. All the Oslo traitors by the way, are still in high office and rule with absolute impunity.

    Flood the Legal system with thousands of complaints demanding adherence to the law. Make it a class action suit. The point is to make the AG react and if he rejects go to the SC I am not saying that the plaintives will win but the publicity will engender a national debate and the public will be educated through the process.

  13. yamit82 Said:

    @ NormanF:
    Force the issue by thousands of criminal complaints. Either change the law or force indictments by sheer force of public pressure. Need a lot of committed legal beavers making formal complaints based on the existing laws. They may not indict but the publicity and ramifications to be learned by the public is important. The Oslo traitors violated the then existing Israeli laws criminalizing contact with the PLO. That should have been pursued by those in opposition to Oslo at the time.

    Hilarious – Israel’s leftist Attorney General has never paid the slightest attention to the elite’s breaking of the country’s laws in their own interests. Israel is an elected dictatorship. The government neither cares about public opinion, street protests or dissent. It does what it wants. And its a good deal more powerful than the Communist Party Of The Soviet Union was at its height when it ruled the country. The one thing Israel does not have is the rule of law. All the Oslo traitors by the way, are still in high office and rule with absolute impunity.

  14. @ yamit82

    Israel nees a solgan. DON’T MESS WITH ISRAEL REMEMBER MUNICH Instead we get Spielberg apologizing and agonizing for just retaliation.

  20. @ NormanF:

    Force the issue by thousands of criminal complaints. Either change the law or force indictments by sheer force of public pressure. Need a lot of committed legal beavers making formal complaints based on the existing laws. They may not indict but the publicity and ramifications to be learned by the public is important. The Oslo traitors violated the then existing Israeli laws criminalizing contact with the PLO. That should have been pursued by those in opposition to Oslo at the time.

  22. honeybee Said:

    A Jewish ,friend of mine, once bragged that the Jews never retaliated against the German people.


    Revenge

    Read two books

    Forged in Fury by Michael Elkins

    The Avengers by Michael Bar Zohar

    “Nokmim”, Hebrew for avengers,

    Dam Yehudi Nakam (Avenge Jewish Blood)

    “Your enemy shall ye seek; your war shall ye wage, and for the sake of your thoughts! And if your thoughts succumb, your uprightness shall still shout triumph thereby!” Nietzsche


    The Avenger: Abba Kovner

    He is right that we never retaliated enough but some Jews did retaliate including ex PM Shamir.

    I would have as soon as we had our first Nuke dropped it on Germany.

  23. honeybee Said:

    @ XLucid:
    A Jewish friend of mine, once bragged that the Jews never retaliated against the German people. When I see movies of the Germans throwing themselves at Hitler feet, I understand why we have little respect. The German people were complicit in the Holocaust, and nothing.
    The Germans are far more careful with the Muslims.

    The Germans are afraid of the Muslims in a way they were never afraid of the Jews! Now you understand why the Jews are fittingly, the Rodney Dangerfield of the nations.

  24. @ XLucid:

    A Jewish ,friend of mine, once bragged that the Jews never retaliated against the German people. When I see movies of the German throwing themselves at Hitler feet, I understand why we have little respect. The German people were complicite in the Holocaust, and nothing.
    The German’s are far more careful with the Muslims.

  25. In 1950, Israel adopted a law called “Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law” with respect to cases dealing with crimes against the Jewish People, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the WWII.

    The following are some excerpts:

    1. (a) A person who has committed one of the following offences –

    (1) done, during the period of the Nazi regime, in an enemy country, an act constituting a crime against the Jewish people;

    (3) done, during the period of the Second World War, in an enemy country, an act constituting a war crime, is liable to the death penalty.

    (b) In this section –

    “crime against the Jewish people” means any of the following acts, committed with intent to destroy the Jewish people in whole or in part:
    (1) killing Jews;
    (2) causing serious bodily or mental harm to Jews;
    (3) placing Jews in living conditions calculated to bring about their physical destruction;
    […]

    “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts: murder, extermination, enslavement, starvation or deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, and persecution on national, racial, religious or political grounds;”

    In 1962, Israel’s Supreme Court based its judgment in the Eichmann case upon said legislation.

    Considering that the crimes committed by the Palestinian terrorists meet all the criteria of “Nazi Collaborators”, then this law should be reformulated and reactivated.

    If the Israeli government was complying to its own laws by punishing the arab criminals in accordance with all the provisions of said laws – as would a true democratic and self-respecting government – then the so-called “terrorist jew”, would have never existed.

  26. @ yamit82:

    My Cherokee friend called me last night and asked me to thank-you for all the infrmation on her tribe. she said ,”she admires your knowleadge”.

  27. yamit82 Said:

    I would be in favor of the death penalty for non Jews and non Israeli citizens who murder within our National and sovereign jurisdiction

    Israelis,USA and the EU are are throwing their children to wolves in hopes of keepin the wolves at bay.

    NormanF Said:

    Jewish life is awfully cheap

    That is because Jews allow their lives to be held cheaply.

  28. Yamit,

    You know as well as I do Israel’s elites will NEVER execute traitors, deserters, collaborators, murderers and Arab terrorists!

    Justice is not what they care about. Its power. Good luck with actually enforcing the death penalty in Israel.

    And oh – Jewish life is awfully cheap and Jews are despised as subhuman vermin.

  29. If Jerusalem is on the table for discussions then BB is in violation of Israeli laws:

    Section B: Treason

    97 (a). A person who, with intent to violate the sovereignty of the state, commits an act that has the potential to violate the state’s sovereignty is liable to life imprisonment or the death penalty.

    97 (b). A person who, with intent that any area be withdrawn from the sovereignty of the state or placed under the sovereignty of a foreign state, commits an act that has the potential to bring this about is liable to life imprisonment or the death penalty…

    100. A person who commits an act revealing any one of the intentions listed in sections 97, 98 or 99 is liable to ten years imprisonment.

    Seems to me the intent by BB is a given!!!!!

  30. The first part of Friedman’s article should be discounted as sophistry and incoorect conclusions to assailable facts.

    The Question of Death Penalty stands without his preamble.

    If I am not mistaken Israeli Law currently includes the death penalty.

    It’s application is subjective I think. Eichman was executed.

    I would be in favor of the death penalty for non Jews and non Israeli citizens who murder within our National and sovereign jurisdiction, but not for Jews, unless related to enemy terrorism and or so heinous that even our most liberal opponents of the death Penalty would be in favor.

    Laws in Israel like most countries are varied, complex and selectively applied.

    (IsraelNN.com) Quoting from Israel’s criminal legislation at a meeting of the Knesset Golan Lobby on Monday, Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad (National Union-National Religious Party) said that relinquishing territory to Syria is a crime that
    If it turns out that Olmert is discussing relinquishing the Golan Heights, Eldad said, then he should be charged with treason entails the death penalty.

    Dozens of MKs and Golan Heights community leaders participated in the emergency meeting, called in the wake of last week’s almost simultaneous announcements by Syrian officials and by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that negotiations were already underway with the Ba’athist dictatorship. Most Kadima party ministers, however, indicated their opposition to turning over the Golan Heights to Syria in any foreseeable deal.

    “There is not a sane nation in the world that gives up the territory of its homeland,” MK Eldad declared, in response to statements by senior politicians in the Kadima party in favor of relinquishing the Golan to Syria. “Whoever removes land from the State of Israel’s sovereign territory is subject to the death penalty,” Eldad explained, adding, “Giving away the Golan Heights to Syria is treason, and the punishment for a person who commits treason under Israeli law is death.”

    Eldad took the issue up with the Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, as well. He asked that Mazuz instruct the police to investigate Prime Minister Olmert’s statements regarding his negotiations with Syria. If it turns out that Olmert is discussing relinquishing the Golan Heights, Eldad said, then he should be charged with treason.

    The Relevant Law
    In his statements on Monday, MK Eldad quoted a subsection of the law verbatim. The text of the law he referred to in part is as follows:

    Section B: Treason

    97 (a). A person who, with intent to violate the sovereignty of the state, commits an act that has the potential to violate the state’s sovereignty is liable to life imprisonment or the death penalty.

    97 (b). A person who, with intent that any area be withdrawn from the sovereignty of the state or placed under the sovereignty of a foreign state, commits an act that has the potential to bring this about is liable to life imprisonment or the death penalty…


    100. A person who commits an act revealing any one of the intentions listed in sections 97, 98 or 99 is liable to ten years imprisonment.


    The Committee of Rabbis to Save Israel released a statement supporting Eldad’s remarks:     Eldad merely “stated the spirit and letter of Israeli law according to which a person who betrays his people and country must be brought to trial and face the death penalty.” The committee further noted that Eldad’s position is “what any sane citizen thinks of the prime minister and his cabinet who are lending support to the destruction of the Land of Israel.”