Rabbi Raziel Shevach, Hy”d, with his family
Every time there is a horrific terrorist murder of a Jew because he or she is a Jew, I am compelled to write one of what I am calling my “outrage posts.”
I’m outraged that this can continue, over and over. Every time, I write that we need a death penalty, or that we should fire a cruise missile at the center of the town that the murderers came from and then build a Jewish town on the ruins. Every time, I write that the perpetrators will almost certainly be caught, but the chances are good that they will survive their arrest and get more-than-humane treatment in an Israeli prison, and their families will receive a monthly stipend from the Palestinian Authority paid for by the US, the EU and even Israel. And every time, I am reminded of the Shalit deal, where a kidnapped soldier was traded for more than a thousand terrorists, including mass murderers.
Yesterday it was Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a 35-year old father of six children, mohel and volunteer medic, murdered in a drive-by shooting on Route 60 near Shechem, in Samaria. Because he was a Jew.
You can’t look at this picture without wanting to cry. Unless, of course, you are a member of Hamas, which announced that they “bless the heroic Nablus operation,” the murder of Rabbi Shevach; or if you belong to Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction, which praised the “skilled and experienced” terrorist who carried out the “operation” and escaped.
This will undoubtedly contribute to the death penalty debate which is currently taking place in the Knesset. I have always favored a death penalty for terrorist murderers, but now I’m not so sure. If such a law passes it will surely include all kinds of safeguards and chances to appeal to the Supreme Court, and who knows what else. It will certainly take time before all the options are exhausted. This is Israel, after all, which aspires to be Berkeley, California, and you know how long it takes (forever) to get a murderer executed in California.
A death sentence that could be executed within a few weeks after the crime would be great. For that matter, so would a real life sentence without possibility of early release. But neither of these are likely.
Most of the time the security forces succeed in finding the terrorists responsible for crimes like this. And despite the fact that there are some terrorists who do want martyrdom, most of them don’t. So they give themselves up to the PA, which hands them over to Israel. Or they manage to surrender to our forces peacefully. And then they get the country-club prison, the conjugal visits, the Open University correspondence courses, the salary from the PA and perhaps an early release. I urge these terrorists to show that they are real men. Don’t go quietly! When the army or YAMAM comes to get you, point your guns at them. They’ll give you a sporting chance, which is more than you gave Rabbi Shevach.
I’ll support the death penalty law. While it probably won’t make much difference, it will make a statement. More important would be a decision by the IDF and police brass that security forces should shoot to kill, not to “neutralize,” and definitely not take terrorists alive. I’ve explained my reasons before, but the most important reason is that in the Middle East upholding your honor is an important part of deterrence; and a people that lets its members be killed without responding in kind loses its honor.
The lesson that these incidents teach me, over and over, is that there is no possibility of sharing our country with the Palestinian Arabs. They have never accepted the idea of Jewish sovereignty and never will. They will always believe that we stole the land and their honor and will always want to get them back, and violence will always be the preferred means. Incitement to murder in their official media, social media and mosques only increases from day to day.
It is the most elemental kind of conflict between human tribes, from long before the dawn of civilization. Two tribes want the same piece of land. Only one side can win. But today modern techniques of incitement and propaganda have made it possible for the tribes to be much larger and the conflict more permanent. It can’t be snuffed out or redirected. And geography doesn’t permit a compromise. One side or the other will have to win.
I wanted to believe, and indeed I did believe for many years, that compromise was possible. A deal could be worked out. Two states for two peoples. But one by one or ten or twenty at a time, Jews were murdered: rabbis, beautiful young girls, old men, soldiers, a bride having lunch with her father on the eve of her wedding, Jews shopping in stores, Jews walking on the sidewalk, riding in cars and buses, praying in synagogues, eating pizza, celebrating holidays, having Shabbat dinner with their families, waiting in line to go into a club, waiting for a bus or a ride, doing anything at all in eretz yisrael.
Rabbi Shevach is the latest, but he won’t be the last.
There have been too many. For me, the debate is over. It doesn’t matter whose narrative is closer to the truth (ours is, but it doesn’t matter). It doesn’t matter how much we Jews really, really want peace. It isn’t up to us.
What matters is that we are engaged in a war that has been waged against us since long before the founding of our state, whose objective has always been to prevent Jewish sovereignty anywhere in our homeland. Our enemies are not confused: they want total victory, and they understand what that means in a practical sense. We need similar clarity, because for the Jewish people, this is an existential war.
We can win it or we can disappear.
terjeber Said:
I agree. I also think punishment is barbaric. I don’t want to punish them. I just want to “remove from them a future.” You nailed it precisely. Good job. Let’s get it done. As comfortably and efficiently as possible.
terjeber Said:
Well, if we’re gonna talk wish list, here, I want a law charging IDF soldiers with negligence if they fail to execute a downed terrorist within 15 minutes. Exceptions can be made for diabetics or hypoglycemics who need to eat something first or for intelligence operatives to take them and interrogate them under torture before disposing of the bodies.
https://youtu.be/187tCWVzAFo
terjeber Said:
Death Penalty Deters Murders, Studies Say
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/death-penalty-deters-murders-studies-say/
Palestinians freed in Shalit deal killed 6 Israelis since 2014
https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-freed-in-shalit-deal-killed-6-israelis-since-2014/
At least 12 released Guantanamo detainees implicated in attacks on Americans
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/about-12-released-guantanamo-detainees-implicated-in-deadly-attacks-on-americans/2016/06/08/004d038e-2776-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html?utm_term=.0597a10d1bfb
Israel in Shock as Munich Killers Freed
This week in Haaretz: 1972.
read more: https://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/israel-in-shock-as-munich-killers-freed-1.322811
Israeli killed on Passover eve was murdered by Palestinian freed in Shalit deal
Cleared for publication: Police Chief Superintendent Baruch Mizrahi was killed by Ziad Awad, a Palestinian freed from an Israeli jail as part of the prisoner deal that freed Gilad Shalit.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4533556,00.html
Death Penalty: Life vs. Anti-Life
Tuesday, October 17, 2017 | Tsvi Sadan
The killing of three family members from Halamish settlement last July reignited the debate over the death penalty for terrorists.
Likud party MK Navah Boker took up the task of amending the existing death penalty law, that was never exercised apart from the execution of Adolf Eichmann in 1962. Boker was encouraged by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Liebermann, who both expressed their wish that the Halamish terrorist be executed.
Defending her legislation proposal, Boker said, “I have no doubt that the death penalty for terrorists, along with other measures, is a real deterrent that helps Israel defeat terror. It is time to stop our sycophantic behavior toward terror and toward our enemies. It is important that the terrorist’s family that sends its son to murder will know that he will receive the most severe penalty, instead of spending years in four-star hotel Israeli prisons, only to be released in some kind of a deal to return and murder innocent civilians.”
Boker refers to the intolerable reality where hundreds of terrorists are released in controversial deals for the return of one Israeli soldier, dead or alive. Many of these terrorists, got a free education in prison and hero status in Palestinian society, immediately go back to killing Israelis.
Israel complains bitterly of the Palestinian “revolving door” policy, whereby it locks up Palestinian terrorists only to release them later. And yet, Israel ends up doing the exact same thing.
Considering itself as an “enlightened” democracy, Israel sees the death penalty as contradicting the value of human dignity. A leading ethics professor, Assa Kasher, expounded: “A democratic country is allowed to kill enemies in war or in terror acts only when it has no other choice.” Kasher concluded that as a matter of principle, democratic countries should not execute convicted terrorists, or anybody else for that matter, so that the idea of human dignity is guarded under any given circumstance. He added that research from around the world has shown that the deterrent factor of the death penalty is negligible, particularly when considering the desire of Muslims to die for Islam’s sake.
Likud MK David Bitan supports the death penalty because he, too, resents the anomaly of terrorists receiving deluxe prison conditions that encourage others to kill Israelis, rather than deter them. “Sentencing terrorists to death,” he says, “is not only a necessity – it is also a moral demand.” The death penalty, he continues, is first of all a punishment, one that can deter potential murderers and could stop the cycle kidnapping soldiers as bargaining chips for jailed prisoners.
Bitan puts his finger on the moral divide characterizing Israeli society. As things stand today, most Israelis still go along with Kasher’s assumptions. Like him, they believe that the death penalty is immoral. This position contradicts the age-old Jewish moral code, which states, “If someone is coming to kill you, rise against him and kill him first.” This admonishment applies not only to a person actively trying to kill another, but also to one who has already killed, and will kill again.
Tragically, however, the enlightened moral code that prohibits the death penalty only serves to increase bloodshed, simply because when eliminating the “anti-life” element for the sake of the living is considered immoral, anti-life abounds.
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/32563/Default.aspx
@ terjeber:
They will be released and rewarded. Then they will organize others to kill or kill again themselves. Only dead terrorists will stop. Because they have been stopped.
Are you religious? Let me try another tack.
Genesis 9:6
Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.
http://biblehub.com/genesis/9-6.htm
Exodus 21:12-26
Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.
Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. 13 But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. 14 But if a man willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+21%3A12-26&version=ESV;NIV
Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Berakoth
Folio 58a
If a man comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first.
http://www.come-and-hear.com/berakoth/berakoth_58.html
He Who is Compassionate to the Cruel
Will Ultimately Become
Cruel to the Compassionate” Maimonides
“the wicked and calculating person (who killed intentionally and was sentenced to death) – if he seeks sanctuary among us, we must not provide him with asylum and not have mercy upon him…because compassion towards the wicked – is cruelty to all beings.”
http://www.acpr.org.il/english-nativ/06-issue/shochetman-6.htm
@ terjeber:
I do not understand the logic of the death penalty not being a deterrent. Perhaps only in the context of a deceived Arab who has been fed the lie that he will get 70 virgins in some heavenly brothel or some other stupidity. In Britain when this logic was applied and the death penalty was done away with, the criminals threw away their pick-axe handles (persuasive weapon of choice for knee caps and ribs) and started using sawed-off shotguns, far more scary. Why?. They simply had no fear of the death penalty so they didn’t care if they had to kill someone during a robbery. That is simply the way that it works in the West. Liberals will deny this but the crime statistics have to be kept secret or fudged or they will be proven wrong. No death sentence for cold blooded murder is actually punishment on your own people especially when your prisons are like holiday camps and after you have imprisoned a terrorist, then you let him go for a political swap. The death penalty may deter some and that’s good but it also means no swaps, and one less person to come back and destroy the future of more innocents. Death may be seen as no punishment by some but the perpetrators next conscious awakening will be on Judgement day. No, it is not revenge it is Biblical justice, an eye for an eye and a life for a life and Government should not try to rule without a sword.
@ terjeber:
Sentancing involves a third element and that is deterrance. Others will be deterred if they see killers being executed. We owe the murderers nothing.
I do disagree with your desire for the death penalty. It’s an emotional plea, and I would certainly want to kill anyone who killed, for example, my daughter, but it is still barbarism. Only barbaric countries murder for revenge (yes, I know that includes my favorite place to live in the world, the USofA). Capital punishment is revenge, it is not punishment. If you kill me you do not punish me, you remove from me a future, but I am not aware of that (since I am not aware of anything any more) so I am not being punished. Punishment should include some kind of suffering. Also, it’s not a deterrent. Never has been, never will be. It is particularly not a deterrent for some superstitious azzhole that thinks dying as the ultimate goal for a good terrorist azzhole.
Now, here are some measures that Israel could take that would function better as both punishment and deterrent. It will make other countries annoyed, but they are already, and the UN will throw a hissy fit, but who cares?
1/ Terrorists who are caught should be offered pork, and ONLY pork to eat in jail. They can chose to eat it (many would) or they can starve.
2/ International precedent says that it’s OK to force feed jailed people if they go on a hunger strike. Fine. Once life is at risk, they should be force fed. Pork. Only.
3/ Life imprisonment. Not capital punishment. Capital punishment is not punishment.
4/ When a terrorist dies in jail (s)he should be cremated and the ashes dumped in a landfill.
Remember, these nutcases are believers in a magical sky fairy that has certain requirements for issuing blessings. So, killing them, and thereby granting them blessings, is an absurd solution. Study their books, and make sure that the things that happen to them after they are caught will prevent them from being blessed by their magical sky fairy.
unfortunately as ISRAELIS we go bottom up not top down. first abb’arse needs to be put on trial, then his multi million $$$ buds, their families sent to Europe once their swiss bank accounts have been stripped. look at the way arra’farts bint lives? no more sending bodies back, unmarked graves some place, make good nosh for the fox and wolf. i’m surprised when I read the terror countries are having a meet next week or so re JERUSALEM I keep misreading as having their met in JERUSALEM.