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  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Israel

    Witch’s brouhaha

    JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Here are some recent stories from Israel that you may have missed:

    Ding dong, the witch is fined

    A rabbinical court in Haifa has fined a woman for practicing witchcraft -- but it could have been worse.

    The court reduced the value of the woman's ketubah, the amount her husband must pay her in the event of divorce, by half -- or about $25,000. However, the wife was acquitted of refusing to cook for her husband -- the least the court could do since her husband had committed adultery.

    The wife denied her husband's charge that she practiced witchcraft, but she failed a polygraph test, leading the court to determine that she in fact had been practicing witchcraft.

    Death is the punishment for witchcraft in the Torah, but the rabbis found a source that instead allowed them to mete out the financial penalty.

    The couple went before the court to receive a decree of Jewish divorce, or get.

    http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011...er-the-radar12

  2. #2
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Approving death penalty for terrorists would be a stain on Israeli law

    The Ministerial Committee For Legislation must reject this unnecessary bill, which cheapens human life and dignity.

    The Knesset Ministerial Committee For Legislation is scheduled Sunday to discuss a bill submitted by Yisrael Beiteinu MK Sharon Gal allowing for the death penalty for terrorists convicted of murder. The bill, which is supported by Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett, seeks to put Israel on the list of countries that allow execution, along with China, North Korea and Iran. Supporters claim the bill is necessary in order to deter would-be terrorists and in light of the fact that Israel often releases terrorist before they’ve served full sentences.

    The death penalty is considered to be an inhumane and cruel punishment by the family of democratic nations, excluding some U.S. states. Israel does have a death penalty on the books, for Nazi war criminals, genocide, and treason, but with the exception of Adolf Eichmann, it has never been used.


  3. #3
    Senior Member Member OperaGhost84's Avatar
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    Nope, wrong, Meir Tobianski was shot in 1948. And if it's good enough for Eichmann...
    I am vehemently against Murder. That's why I support the Death Penalty.

  4. #4
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Death penalty for terrorists 'will return sanity to Israel'

    Dozens of rabbis call on gov't to implement death penalty; initiators say it would also stop citizens taking law into their own hands.

    By Ido Ben-Porat
    israelnationalnews.com

    Dozens of Israeli rabbis have signed a halakhic (Jewish legal) ruling calling on the government to institute the death penalty for terrorists.

    The letter, initiated by the Derekh Hayim organization, calls for authorities to act with an iron fist against the ongoing wave of terrorist attacks.

    "In these difficult times, when Jewish blood is being spilled like water, we must repeat the obvious: Anyone who wants to harm a Jew, it is imperative to preempt him and kill him before he carries out his deed," the letter reads, going on to site the Talmudic dictum that "he who comes to kill you, arise and kill him first."

    "It is forbidden to be negligent regarding (the Torah command) 'Do not stand idly by your fellow's blood," it continues, saying those principles also apply "after the act."

    "The government must decree the death penalty for terrorist murderers," the letter adds, stressing that any leniency towards "encourages terror."

    Implementing the death penalty would serve as a deterrent, and ensure that even if captured alive the terrorist would not be able to carry out any attacks in the future, i.e. upon his or her release from prison.

    The rabbis added that taking a strong hand against terrorism would also win Israel respect internationally.

    They noted that Israeli law actually already includes the option of the death penalty, meaning that far from embarking on an arduous legislative process the government simply needed to opt to use it.

    Israel has only ever handed down the death penalty once, when it executed Nazi leader and one of the architects of the holocaust Adolf Eichmann in 1962. Despite having the option to use it in other cases, such as mass-murdering terrorists, Israel has observed an unofficial indefinite moratorium on the death penalty since then.

    The letter was signed by dozens of rabbis including Derekh Hayim chairman Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg; former Kiryat Arba-Hevron Chief Rabbi and leading Religious-Zionist figure Rabbi Dov Lior; Temple Institute head and halakhic authority Rabbi Yisrael Ariel; Kiryat Motzkin Chief Rabbi David Drukman; Alon Shvut Chief Rabbi Gidon Perel; Karnei Shomron Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Levi; Yitzhar Chief Rabbi David Dudkevich and numerous religious-Zionist roshei yeshiva (yeshiva deans).

    Derekh Hayim spokesman Rabbi Yossi Pla'i explained the motivation behind the letter.

    "When government policy is that there is no death penalty for terrorists, and on the contrary, we see that even terrorist murderers sit in prison in good condition and are released in (prisoner swap) deals, this is something which erodes the feeling of security" for Israel's citizens, he said.

    "As a result, it is no wonder that members of the public want to harm terrorists themselves, in the knowledge that they will not receive a fitting punishment" he added, referring to the increased incidents of incensed civilians attempting to lynch neutralized terrorists who carried out attacks.

    Handing the death penalty to terrorists who harm Jews would mark a "return to sanity and justice," he said.

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Ne...2#.Vjn_PvvkLxc
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #5
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Death penalty for terrorists?

    Ministerial committee set to discuss controversial proposal. Bill would remove barriers to executing terrorists convicted of murder.

    The Ministerial Committee for Legislation is set to discuss on Sunday a controversial proposal from former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that would enable courts to sentence convicted terrorists to death.

    Lieberman, who made a campaign slogan promising the death penalty for terrorists, proposed the bill last year.

    If passed, the legislation would enable military courts to sentence terrorists convicted of attacks “intended to kill citizens for political, national, religious, or ideological purposes.”

    The law would also require only a majority, rather than a unanimous decision, to sentence terrorists to death. It would also prohibit reducing the sentence once it has been finalized.

    The Ministerial Committee meets every Sunday to discuss pending legislation and to determine the government’s official position on specific bills. The Committee can either vote to affirm or deny the proposal government support, which would obligate all coalition members to vote in favor of the bill, all but assuring its passage.

    The Israel Democracy Institute blasted the proposal, calling upon the Committee to reject it on Sunday. In a five page statement the IDI argued that permitting the death penalty would put Israel in company with some of the world’s most undemocratic regimes and biggest human rights offenders like China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.

    Israeli law currently includes the death penalty, but judicial barriers have prevented its use since the execution of Adolf Eichmann in 1962.

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Ne...1#.Vu7CTZvmp9A
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  6. #6
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Benjamin Netanyahu has called for the death penalty for Palestinian Omar al-Abed (pictured), who killed three Israelis during a period of intense violence in Jerusalem last week.


    Netanyahu said his position in the case of al-Abed (pictured), who was wounded by an off-duty soldier during Friday night's attack, 'is that he needs to be put to death'.


    The Israeli government has only ever put one person to death: Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann (pictured), in 1961



    Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls for a Palestinian man who killed three Israelis to get the death penalty – 55 years after the last state execution of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann

    Benjamin Netanyahu has called for the death penalty for a Palestinian who killed three Israelis during a period of intense violence in Jerusalem last week.

    The Israeli Prime Minister visited the family of Yosef Salomon, 70, and his children Chaya, 46, and Elad, 36, who were stabbed to death by 19-year-old Omar al-Abed.

    Netanyahu said his position in the case of al-Abed, who was wounded by an off-duty soldier during Friday night's attack, 'is that he needs to be put to death'.

    Several members of Netanyahu's cabinet issued similar calls in the week since the attack.

    Though Israeli law does permit the death penalty, the Israeli government has only ever put one person to death: Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was hung to death in 1962.

    Eichmann - said to be one of the architects of the Holocaust - was one of Hitler's most efficient and ruthless killers.

    He dispatched orders to murder the smallest Jewish children to stop them growing up and seeking revenge.

    He fled to Argentina after escaping a prison camp after the Second World War but was captured in Buenos Aires in May 1960 and smuggled back to Israel, where he was killed two years later.

    The deaths of the three Israelis came amid deadly unrest in the days since Israel installed new metal detectors outside the entrance to the Haram al-Sharif compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, on July 16.

    Palestinians saw the move as an attempt by Israel to assert further control over the site, which houses the revered Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

    Clashes erupted around the compound and in the occupied West Bank, leaving five Palestinians dead.

    DEATH OF 'HOLOCAUST ARCHITECT' ADOLF EICHMANN

    Adolf Eichmann was one of Hitler's most efficient and ruthless killers: dispatching orders to murder the smallest Jewish children to stop them growing up and seeking revenge.

    Although Eichmann did not come up with the 'Final Solution', he was one of its key architects and oversaw mass deportations and extermination in the network of Nazi death camps.

    He had been a Lt-Col in the SS but fled to Argentina when his role in the final solution was revealed during the Nuremberg Trials in 1946.

    He was eventually kidnapped by Israeli secret service agents in May 1960 after his son boasted to a girlfriend of his father's horrific Nazi record.

    Eichmann was later smuggled back to Israel to face trial in 1961, where he was condemned to death by hanging.

    Controversially, the trial was televised, bringing the twentieth century's defining portrait of evil into homes around the world.

    After a trial two years later for war crimes he was executed by the Israelis for his role in the Holocaust.
    Today Israeli police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades at Palestinians following the dispute over the holy site in Jerusalem.

    Muslim worshippers retaliated by throwing stones at the Western Wall following days of intense violence in Jerusalem's Old City.

    Fighting erupted shortly after Palestinians rushed to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which was reopened following an 11-day boycott by Muslims over Israeli security measures.

    The head of the Arab League warned Thursday that Israeli attempts to control highly sensitive religious sites in Jerusalem by force risk igniting a 'religious war'.

    The Red Crescent said tensions rose when Israeli troops closed one of the gates to the Haram al-Sharif compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount, as large numbers of worshippers tried to enter.

    The head of the Arab League warned that Israeli attempts to control highly sensitive religious sites in Jerusalem by force risk igniting a 'religious war'.

    Israel's actions are 'playing with fire, and will only ignite a religious war and shift the core of the conflict from politics to religion,' said Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit.

    He added: 'I invite the occupying state (Israel) to carefully learn the lessons from this crisis and the message it holds.

    'Handling holy sites lightly and with this level of arrogance seriously threatens to ignite a religious war, since not one single Muslim in the world would accept the desecration of Al-Aqsa mosque.'

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz4o9bxuIWs

  7. #7
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Shep3's Avatar
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    why Israel hasn't imposed the death penalty yet I will never know. only thing that makes since is it's some lingering hold over from the failed policies of the liberal labor party.

  8. #8
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Poll: 70% of israelis support death penalty for Palestinian terrorists

    "Enacting a death penalty for terrorists, along with other measures, could restore deterrence and help stop terror in Israel."

    Some 70 percent of Israelis favor giving the death penalty to Palestinian terrorists who murdered Israelis, according to the monthly Peace Index that was released by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University Wednesday.

    The poll found that 69.8% of Israelis would support giving death sentences after a trial to Palestinians who murdered Israeli citizens for nationalistic reasons. The percentage saying they would oppose the death penalty was 25.3%, and 4.9% said they did not know or declined to respond.

    When asked specifically about giving the death penalty to murderers of IDF soldiers, the numbers were not much different, with 65.8% in favor, 28% against, and 6.1% not knowing or responding.

    Likud MK Naava Boker proposed a bill Wednesday that would allow giving the death penalty to terrorists sent by a terrorist organization who murder at least two people.

    "The murderers of the Fogel family in Itamar currently live in a four-star hotel in an Israeli prison," Boker said. "The recent murders of border policemen on the Temple Mount and the Solomon family in Halamish require taking stricter measures. Enacting a death penalty for terrorists, along with other measures, could restore deterrence and help stop terror in Israel."

    The poll asked respondents whether punishments given by Israeli courts to Palestinian terrorists who kill Israelis fit the crime. There was a huge difference by Israeli Arabs and Jews in their response.

    Among Israeli Arabs, 63% said they were too harsh, 2.3% said too easy, 25.4% said just right, and 9.3% did not know or respond.

    Among Israeli Jews 71.6% said too easy, 2.6% said too heavy, 18.5% said just, right and 7.3% did not know or respond.

    When asked whether they agreed with the claim that Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu did not try to ease tensions on the Temple Mount issue because he wanted to destract the public from his criminal probes, more than half of the respondents said they did not think so. The percentage of those who agreed with the claim was much higher among Israeli Arabs than Jews.

    Asked whether they thought Netanyahu knew about his lawyer David Shimron being involved in a controversial submarine deal that is being investigated, 55% said yes, 22% said no, and 23% declined to respond or said they did not know.

    The poll asked about claims that Netanyahu made the submarine deal for personal reasons no less than security reasons. The percentage who agreed was 40.2%, those who disagreed was 38.3%, and 21.5% said they did not know or did not respond.

    The poll of 600 Israelis representing a statistical sample of the adult Israeli population was taken July 25-27 and had a margin or error of plus or minus 4.1%.

    When asked specifically about giving the death penalty to murderers of IDF soldiers, the numbers were not much different, with 65.8% in favor, 28% against, and 6.1% not knowing or responding.

    Likud MK Naava Boker proposed a bill Wednesday that would allow giving the death penalty to terrorists sent by a terrorist organization who murder at least two people.

    "The murderers of the Fogel family in Itamar currently live in a four-star hotel in an Israeli prison," Boker said. "The recent murders of border policemen on the Temple Mount and the Solomon family in Halamish require taking stricter measures. Enacting a death penalty for terrorists, along with other measures, could restore deterrence and help stop terror in Israel."

    The poll asked respondents whether punishments given by Israeli courts to Palestinian terrorists who kill Israelis fit the crime. There was a huge difference by Israeli Arabs and Jews in their response.

    Among Israeli Arabs, 63% said they were too harsh, 2.3% said too easy, 25.4% said just right, and 9.3% did not know or respond.

    Among Israeli Jews 71.6% said too easy, 2.6% said too heavy, 18.5% said just, right and 7.3% did not know or respond.

    When asked whether they agreed with the claim that Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu did not try to ease tensions on the Temple Mount issue because he wanted to destract the public from his criminal probes, more than half of the respondents said they did not think so. The percentage of those who agreed with the claim was much higher among Israeli Arabs than Jews.

    Asked whether they thought Netanyahu knew about his lawyer David Shimron being involved in a controversial submarine deal that is being investigated, 55% said yes, 22% said no, and 23% declined to respond or said they did not know.

    The poll asked about claims that Netanyahu made the submarine deal for personal reasons no less than security reasons. The percentage who agreed was 40.2%, those who disagreed was 38.3%, and 21.5% said they did not know or did not respond.
    When asked specifically about giving the death penalty to murderers of IDF soldiers, the numbers were not much different, with 65.8% in favor, 28% against, and 6.1% not knowing or responding.

    Likud MK Naava Boker proposed a bill Wednesday that would allow giving the death penalty to terrorists sent by a terrorist organization who murder at least two people.

    "The murderers of the Fogel family in Itamar currently live in a four-star hotel in an Israeli prison," Boker said. "The recent murders of border policemen on the Temple Mount and the Solomon family in Halamish require taking stricter measures. Enacting a death penalty for terrorists, along with other measures, could restore deterrence and help stop terror in Israel."

    The poll asked respondents whether punishments given by Israeli courts to Palestinian terrorists who kill Israelis fit the crime. There was a huge difference by Israeli Arabs and Jews in their response.

    Among Israeli Arabs, 63% said they were too harsh, 2.3% said too easy, 25.4% said just right, and 9.3% did not know or respond.

    Among Israeli Jews 71.6% said too easy, 2.6% said too heavy, 18.5% said just, right and 7.3% did not know or respond.

    When asked whether they agreed with the claim that Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu did not try to ease tensions on the Temple Mount issue because he wanted to destract the public from his criminal probes, more than half of the respondents said they did not think so. The percentage of those who agreed with the claim was much higher among Israeli Arabs than Jews.

    Asked whether they thought Netanyahu knew about his lawyer David Shimron being involved in a controversial submarine deal that is being investigated, 55% said yes, 22% said no, and 23% declined to respond or said they did not know.

    The poll asked about claims that Netanyahu made the submarine deal for personal reasons no less than security reasons. The percentage who agreed was 40.2%, those who disagreed was 38.3%, and 21.5% said they did not know or did not respond.

    http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Pol...rorists-501415

  9. #9
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Israel offers asylum to journalist who could face death penalty in Iran

    ERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel has offered asylum to an Iranian journalist who has been working for an Israeli news website from Turkey.

    Turkey recently informed journalist Neda Amin, who writes for The Times of Israel site, that she would be deported in the coming days to Iran, which she fled three years ago. She could face the death penalty in Iran.

    The Jerusalem Association of Journalists and the Union of Journalists in Israel asked Israel’s interior minister, Aryeh Deri, to offer her sanctuary in Israel.

    Deri said in a statement he would issue Amin a special visa.

    “This journalist faces real danger to her life only because she wrote columns for an Israeli news site,” he said. “Under these clear humanitarian circumstances, I approved her entry without hesitation.

    http://jewishworldnews.org/israel-of...nalty-in-iran/

  10. #10
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Knesset Considers Changing Law to Apply Death Penalty to Convicted Terrorists

    Israel has confronted terrorist attacks for many decades, but in all of those years, the Knesset and the public have not seriously considered whether the justice system should sentence convicted terrorists to death. Instead, despite allowing punishment by death for a narrow range of crimes that might plausibly be applied to terrorism offenses, Israel has continued to apply a de facto moratorium on the death penalty.

    A recent Knesset bill that would introduce the death sentence for terror-related murder in Israel has broken the decades of relative silence on the matter. With the backing of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, members of the Yisrael Beiteinu party proposed the bill and saw it through preliminary approval in a plenary session of the Knesset. It is now pending before the committee on constitutional and legal matters for further debate and preparation for additional readings. The proposal has 2 elements. The 1st amends Israel's Penal Law to stipulate that a person convicted of murder while committing a terrorist act may receive the death penalty. The 2nd part relates to the West Bank, which Israel has controlled since the 6-Day War and which is ruled under a separate legal regime based on the international law of belligerent occupation. Article 209 of the Decree on Security Instructions (issued by the military commander of the West Bank) already allows the death penalty for murder, or what the law calls "intentional manslaughter," provided that the sentence receives unanimous approval from a panel of military judges. The proposed bill orders the defense minister to direct the commander to change the decree, so that a decision of a majority of a panel of military judges can issue a death sentence. Furthermore, the bill proposes that the military commander of the West Bank will have no power to mitigate a final death sentence.

    This piece will provide an overview of the current legal status and history of the death penalty in Israel. The death penalty also presents many deep moral, legal and criminological questions, both in its more general application and in the specific context of punishment for acts of terror. Though these issues are important, I will not address them here.

    When Israel was established in 1948, the 1st statute that the temporary state council enacted declared that existing law remain in force, as long as it is not in contrast to new law (Article 11). Thus, Israel inherited the legal system from the British Mandate of Palestine. This system included the death sentence for a variety of crimes, including murder and security-related offenses. In 1954, Israel abolished the death sentence in civilian cases of murder. Between the establishment of the state of Israel and the abolition of the death sentence for murder, courts issued a few death sentences, but the punishments were never carried out. The 1954 amending law commuted pending death sentences to life imprisonment. The law includes only 1 exception: convictions of murder according to the 1950 Nazi and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law. The only person executed in Israel according to a sentence of a regular court in almost 70 years was Adolf Eichmann, executed in 1962 after his conviction for crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes he committed during the Holocaust.

    The Defence (Emergency) Regulations of 1945, which the British Mandate enacted during the period when Jewish struggle for the establishment of an independent state intensified, includes under Regulation 58 the death sentence for discharging "any firearm at any person" or throwing or depositing "any bomb, grenade or incendiary article with intention to cause death or injury to any person or damage to any property." Furthermore, even carrying a firearm without a permit or a membership in a group of which another member committed such offences would be enough to sentence a perpetrator to death before a military court. During the last years of the British Mandate, nine members of Jewish underground movements were executed for such offenses. This provision remains in force in Israel, though the military court established pursuant to the regulations is no longer active under a 2000 decision by the attorney general.

    The death penalty also exists in Israeli penal legislation for treason in times of war (Articles 96-99 of the Penal Law and Article 43 of the Military Justice Law). To this day, no one has been executed for these offenses.

    The Defence Regulations remain in force in the West Bank as well, though Palestinian terrorism defendants are usually indicted before military courts in the West Bank for offenses under the Decree on Security Instruction.

    As noted, the decree includes the death penalty as the maximum punishment for murder, as well as three safeguards against an erroneous death sentence. First, the death sentence may not be pronounced based solely on an admission of guilt. The court must conduct a trial and find that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (Article 121). Second, a death sentence requires the unanimous decision of a panel of three military judges holding the rank of lieutenant colonel or higher (Article 165(a)). (As mentioned earlier, the bill currently before the Knesset would lift this requirement and allow the imposition of a death sentence by a majority decision.) Third, there is an automatic appeal on a death sentence to the military court of appeals, even if the convicted party does not seek one (Article 156).

    Since 1967, no death penalties have been carried out in the West Bank, mainly because military prosecutors, with the government's backing, have adopted a policy to not request the death penalty. Usually, courts do not sentence defendants to a harsher punishment than the prosecution requests. Still, in a few cases, military trial courts rendered a death sentence, but in every instance, execution was replaced with a life sentence on appeal.

    Note that international humanitarian law does not preclude sentencing to death protected persons in occupied territory. Article 68 of the fourth Geneva Convention allows the death penalty for espionage, serious acts of sabotage against military installations, or intentional offenses that cause death. Three other conditions apply: The offense must have been punishable with death under the law of the territory before the occupation; the court must be made aware that the defendant is not a national of the occupying power and therefore not bound by a duty of allegiance to it; and the sentenced person must have been at least eighteen years of age at the time of the offence.

    In securing the right to life, international human rights law, allows courts to impose a death sentence "only for the most serious crimes" (Article 6(2) of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR]). Additional limitations on capital punishment in the ICCPR include that it may not be carried out on pregnant women and may not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below 18 years of age (Article 6(5)), echoing the 4th Geneva Convention. The U.N. Human Rights Committee, the expert body entrusted with monitoring the implementation of the ICCPR, has clearly indicated that once abolished, the death sentence cannot be reintroduced, nor can new capital offenses that did not exist at the time of the ICCPR's ratification be added (Draft of General Comment No. 36 on Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). According to this position, the proposition in the bill to reintroduce the death penalty in Israeli penal law for murder, though only in terror-related cases, may be considered a violation of the ICCPR.

    The proposed language in the bill designed to prevent the ability to mitigate a death sentence is directly contrary to the ICCPR (Article 6(4)). Lastly, the proposition in the bill to allow imposition of the death sentence by a majority of the judges instead of the requirement for a unanimous decision, may be contrary to the position of the Human Rights Committee that states parties may not remove legal conditions from an existing offence with the result of permitting the imposition of the death penalty in circumstances in which it was not possible to impose it before. This is the case if this position applies not only to substantive legal conditions but also to procedural guarantees.

    A change in established policy against the death sentence will have to overcome another legal hurdle: Israeli constitutional law. Specifically, Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty declares in Articles 2 and 4 that all persons are entitled to protection of their right to life. It allows a restriction of rights that may only be superseded by a law befitting the values of the state of Israel, enacted for a proper purpose, and to an extent no greater than is required (Article 8). It is quite possible that the Israeli Supreme Court would accept a petition against a law promoting the death penalty and declare such a law unconstitutional.

    Finally, a change in government policy towards the imposition of the death penalty may raise tensions between prosecutors, both military and civilian, and politicians. The attorney general, heading the state prosecution and the military advocate general heading the military prosecution must make their law enforcement decisions independently. They are not subject in this capacity to the directions or policy of the justice minister, the defense minister, or the government, and in case of disagreement between the attorney general and the government, the final call belongs to the former.

    Whether the Knesset changes the law to expand the possibility to use of the death penalty in terrorism cases or the government decides to adopt a policy to encourage imposition of the death sentence when possible under existing law, the attorney general and military advocate general should consider the policy change. However, they would remain free to decide not to request the death penalty. Such a decision will not be surprising considering the reports about the attorney general's objection to the bill, as well as the objection raised by the head of Israel Security Agency to the bill. Interestingly enough, the head of the agency, in an appearance last month before a Knesset Committee, opined that the death penalty will encourage new terrorist kidnapping attacks and is not an effective counterterrorism measure.

    Against the backdrop of the professional position of both the legal and the security establishment, a survey by the Israel Democracy Institute in July 2017 found that 70 % of the Jewish public supports the death penalty for Palestinians found guilty of murdering Israeli civilians for nationalist reasons. Though probably affected by severe terrorist attacks just before the survey, it seems the government will have to navigate carefully between public sentiment and rational decision making, between short term and long term considerations. It is hard to predict the outcome.

    (source: Liron Libman, lawfareblog.com)
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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