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“Terrorists are inciting, and want to kick us out of
here. I promise they won’t be successful.” – Benjamin Netanyahu
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Unit 1012 awards the Rayner
Goddard Act of Courage Award to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for
changing his position from a death penalty opponent to a supporter. Philosopher
Von Goethe was right when he said:
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If we could do
away with death, we wouldn’t object; to do away with capital punishment will be
more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.
[Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Travels, from Makarie’s
Archive (1829).]
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We are also grateful
that he showed support to the victims’ families, instead of the killers.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
speaks to the family members of the three people killed by a Palestinian
terrorist in Halamish. (photo credit:AMOS BEN-GERSHOM/GPO)
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Netanyahu Says Palestinian Killer of Three Israelis Should Be Executed
In condolence visit to Salomon family, who lost three members in attack
in their settlement home, PM says 'time has come' for 'death penalty for
terrorists'
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said on Thursday (July 27, 2017) that the Palestinian who killed three Israelis
last week should be executed. Netanyahu was speaking during a condolence visit
with the Salomon family, who lost three family members in an attack in their
West Bank home of Halamish.
"The death
penalty for terrorists is something that the time has come to do," the
prime minister told the family.
"It's
enshrined in the law. You need to have the judges reach unanimity, but they
also want to know the government's position. My position as prime minister, in
such a case, of a murderer as lowly as this, is that he must be put to death.
We simply need him not to smile anymore."
Last Friday, 19-year-old Omar
al-Abed of the nearby village of Khobar infiltrated Halamish and stabbed Yosef
Salomon, 70, and his adult children, Chaya, a 46-year-old teacher, and Elad,
36. Yosef's wife Tova, 68, was wounded in the attack.
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Benjamin Netanyahu against Hamas
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Netanyahu
favors capital punishment for Halamish terrorist
July 27, 2017 18:40
Israeli prime
minister echoes ministers who called for the death penalty to be put to use
against terrorist who murdered family in Halamish.
The terrorist
who killed Yosef, Chaya and Elad Salomon in Halamish last Shabbat “should simply never smile again,” Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday, advocating the death penalty in this case.
“It is time for the death penalty for terrorists,”
Netanyahu said during a shiva call he and his wife, Sara, made to the Solomon
home in El’ad.
Netanyahu
said the death penalty was anchored in law, but that a ruling on this matter
needs the consent of judges trying the case, and they want to know the
government’s position.
“My position as the prime minister is that in this
case, with such a lowly murderer, he has to be taken out to die. He should
simply never smile again,” he said.
The terrorist, Omar al-Abed al-Jalil, 19, from Kobar, was “neutralized” when
shot in the stomach by a soldier from the IDF’s Oketz canine unit, on leave at
the time – a neighbor of the Solomons in Halamish – who ran to the home when he
heard the screams.
Netanyahu
expresses public support for death penalty to terrorists
After opposing capital punishment
over the years, PM tells Salomon family, who lost three members in terror
attack in Halamish, that it's time 'to wipe the smile off the terrorist's
face'; while military law allows it, the government needs to change its policy
on the matter to enable judges to hand down such a sentence.
Netanyahu
paid his respects to al-Abed's victims—Yosef Salomon, 70, and his children
Haya, 46, and Elad, 35—on Thursday during a visit to the family home in the
West Bank settlement of Halamish.
"It's time
we start giving death sentences to terrorists," the prime minister told the mourning family. "It's
enshrined in law, it requires a unanimous decision by the judges, but they also
want to know the government's position. And my position as the prime minister,
in this instance of such a heinous murderer—he needs to be executed. We need to
wipe the smile off his face."
The Security Provisions Order in the
West Bank allows to hand down the death sentence to a terrorist convicted of
murder, but sparingly. The decision must be unanimous, a trial must be
conducted even if the terrorist pleads guilty to the charges, and the death
penalty must be appealed even if the terrorist does not choose to appeal it.
Change in
policy required
For such a sentence to be handed out,
however, Netanyahu and Lieberman need to change the government's policy and
instruct the military prosecution to ask the military courts for such a
punishment.
The defense establishment has opposed
implementing the law, because of the concern it would lead to abductions of
Israeli soldiers and civilians as bargaining chips to release terrorists on
death row.
Netanyahu has also been against changing
the government policy on capital punishment. Two years ago, Netanyahu shelved a
bill on capital punishment to terrorists, which was proposed by then-MK Sharon
Gal (Yisrael Beytenu). The prime minister instructed the seven Likud ministers in
the Ministerial Committee for Legislation to vote against the bill and ordered
the formation of a team headed by Minister Yariv Levin to examine
the issue.
Last year, Lieberman demanded the move
as his condition to joining
the government, but eventually relinquished the demand.
Earlier this
week, when the Cabinet discussed the murder of the Salomon family, Minister
Yisrael Katz demanded the death penalty for the terrorist and the expulsion of
Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the outlawed
northern branch of the Islamic Movement, to Syria or to Gaza. The ministers
decided to discuss the issue again after the Temple Mount crisis is resolved.
But unlike
Lieberman, and Bayit Yehudi Ministers Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked,
Netanyahu did not express support for capital punishment during the Cabinet
discussion—only at the Salomon family home later in the week.
Lieberman, as
the defense minister, and Netanyahu, as the prime minister, are the only two
who can lead such a change in policy.
Such a move is not expected
to face any bureaucratic or procedural delays. The Cabinet will likely seek the
positions of the Shin Bet, the IDF, the Justice Ministry and the military
judicial system on the matter, but eventually the decision will be down to the prime
minister, who enjoys the support of his defense minister and right-wing
Cabinet.
Terrorist asks
for death sentence
Only several military judges in IDF
history sentenced terrorists to death as an act of deterrence, but the verdicts
were eventually not carried out over a minority opinion or an appeal that
overruled it.
In July 1997, a military judge
"undermined" the policy of the government (which was also led by
Netanyahu) and sentenced Hamas arch-terrorist Hassan Salameh to death—but his
was the minority opinion. Salameh was convicted of the murder of 46 Israelis.
Salameh himself, who showed no remorse
for his actions, asked the judges to sentence him to death.
The judges noted this was an
"all-time record" of people killed in a terror attack by one
terrorist, and the minority opinion judge, Col. (res.) Ilan Katz wrote,
"The defendant said he intended to kill as many Jews as possible. He was
aware of the results of the first two attacks and yet did not cease and carried
out the third attack regardless. With that, he has lost his humanity and made
himself an exception to the rule. He carried out these attacks while there is
an ongoing peace process in our region in an effort to foil it."
Katz went on to note that "Even the
judicial sources in Judaism, from the Sanhedrin to the Rambam, supported
handing down the death sentence sparingly."
The judge further criticized "the
way in which courts determine they are not handing down the death sentence
because it was not asked for by the prosecution is not appropriate and
undermines the duty of the courts to exercise independent judgment."
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Hamas is responsible and Hamas will pay. - Benjamin Netanyahu
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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
