Peloni: This is an important development.
Police announces latest indictment of Jewish Israeli over espionage for Iran
Photo by Amanda Slater from Coventry, West Midlands, UK – Noose, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikipedia
After passing a first out of three necessary readings in the Knesset last week, the “death penalty for terrorists” bill was discussed during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The discussion touched on several controversial aspects of the law.
While the security services indicated that there would be no objection on their part, the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) signaled that doctors would not want to take part in the practical implementation of the death penalty. At the same time, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich explicitly called for the measure to be extended to Jews who spy for the Iranian regime.
The bill was presented by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who said it was meant “to create deterrence, prevent [terrorists] from continuing to carry out kidnappings, and bring justice – think about the murderers of the Fogel family.”
A representative from the Israel Defense Forces stated, “In the Chief of Staff’s view, there is no objection to a death penalty law for terrorists. This is our position and it is with the chief of staff’s approval. The army supports introducing judicial discretion and avoiding making it a mandatory sentence.”
Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem asked Shin Bet Director David Zini whether he thinks the law would increase deterrence. “Yes. Such a tool is highly deterrent,” Zini replied, according to Ynet News.
“I am not entering policy or legal considerations, but from our standpoint, it is a punishment that will deter.”
Amsalem then asked Zini whether the death penalty could lead to increased attempts at kidnapping Jews, rather than killing them. He responded, “They have already kidnapped before. The discussion is a moral one, but the law does bring deterrence.”
It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ultimately support the implementation of the law, which is sure to invite international condemnation.
Dr. Yossi Wolfish, chair of the IMA’s Medical Ethics Bureau, submitted a statement to the National Security Committee asserting that the organization “prohibits any participation of doctors in determining, preparing, or carrying out a death sentence – including assessing fitness, involvement in injecting substances, monitoring vital signs, or providing technical advice.”
He wrote that “the Israel Medical Association is committed to international conventions and fully adopts the principles of the World Medical Association, which holds that physician participation in executions is ethically unacceptable at any stage, including planning or guidance.”
Meanwhile, Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs stressed that from the government’s perspective, “The central question is whether it would be appropriate to introduce discretion and not make it a mandatory punishment.”
Ben Gvir argued that the death penalty must be a mandatory sentence “because of the Attorney General and the State Attorney’s Office. We all know they will never request the death penalty, and even if we instruct them to, they will tell us we cannot intervene in sentencing policy. I do not trust them.”
He also noted that the law would apply to “anyone acting against the revival of the Jewish people.”
Pointing to several recent incidents of Jewish Israelis spying for Iran, Finance Minister Smotrich argued that “a Jew who acts on behalf of Iran and against the State of Israel could [also] be executed.”
His position could provoke more discussions in the future, as some members of Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power party have argued that the law would not apply to Jews as they could not commit “terrorism” in the same sense.
According to Channel 12 News, in the past two months alone, Israel’s security services have carried out over 30 “interventions” connected to cases of Iranian intelligence trying to contact Israeli citizens, includingwarning conversations, interrogations and arrests.
Since the start of the war on Oct. 7, 2023, over 30 espionage cases have been discovered, leading to some 50 indictments.
The most recent case was revealed on Thursday, when the Shin Bet and the Israel Police announced the indictment of Rafael Reuveni, a 21-year-old Israeli citizen from Beersheva, who was arrested last month on suspicion of security offenses involving contact with Iranian intelligence operatives.
Reuveni had allegedly carried out various security-related missions at the direction of Iranian intelligence operatives in exchange for money, including sending photographs, hiding a phone and a cigarette box at designated locations, collecting a SIM card from a drop point, and transferring a concealed handgun to another location.
The “Provisional” IRA during the Northern Ireland “troubles” (1968 to 2005) received no financial rewards for their service in the organization. They didn’t even receive pensions, but instead had to return to the occupations they had worked at before they joined the IRA. Even Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, and the man with the power to either authorize terrorist attacks or order the IRA to stand down and observe a truce, apparently made no money from his service to Sinn Fein and the IRA. The last I heard of him he was working as a farm hand on a farm owned by his elderly uncle, receiving only room and board as pay.
Far from dealing in drugs, the IRA worked hard to keep drugs out of the Catholic neighborhoods they controlled, They even executed alleged drug dealers. Occasionally they even handed over some drug dealers to the Northern Ireland police,even while they were waging war against them for political reasons.
Tis contrast with the vast empire in drugs that Hezbollah has created, selling controlled substances worldwide, but with a special concentration of Latin America, where they are a major source of illegal drugs to the drug cartels in Columbia, Mexico and elsewhere. Hezbollah “leaders” are said to have acquiored vast wealth. Hamas is also deeply involved in this drug traffic. Forbes list of the 3,000 wealthiest men and women in the world lists several Hamas and Hezbollah drug lords among the them. The former Assad regime, and the Assad family itself, also made millions of dollars, even tens of million dollars, by trafficingin drugs. In particular, there is a drug similar to amphetamines, although not exactly the same, that was manufactured in Syria and distributed throughout the Arab world, creating hundreds of thousands of Arab addicts, most of them young men and women. This drug is still being manufactured in Syria and distributed throughout the Arab world. The new al-Sharaa regime has made only half-hearted efforts to close down the drug manufacturing plants.
The Irish people have many harmful prejudices, especially antisemitism. Nearly all politically active Irish Catholics are enthusiastic supporters of the “Palestinian cause,” although the Palestinians have done absolutely nothing to help the Irish.
But few of them are crooks or criminals. Until the large scale Muslim immigration, actively encouraged by the country’s left-leaning government, crime was rare. Now it is all too common.
Gaza should be made as Jewish as Tel Aviv. The terrorists should be killed and the “civilians” should be “evacuated” preferably voluntarily.
I think that death by pirhanhas or sharks would be at once ecological and not require a doctor for anything.
I don’t understand why the medical profession’s objections are given so much space in this article. Death by lethal injection is just one way to kill terrorists and traitors.
As the accompanying photo suggests, there is old fashioned hanging. Also the firing squad.
I think it is a great idea, and will show Israel means business, given all the backsliding over who is going to get ownership of Gaza – which should have gone to Israel, of course.
In my opinion, this is an excellent proposal. The comparison with the Irish rebels of 1916 and the unfavorable reaction of the Irish public to their execution, is misleading, because the Irish rebels had no interest in money, and did not expect any financial reward. They were motivated solely by Irish nationalism. This was understood by both the Irish and British publics. On the other hand, there is abundent evidence that money is a major motive for the Hamasniks and the other Palestinian terrorists. The Ramallah government rewards the Palestinian terrorists “generously.” They receive generous pensions for each Jew they murder. And after they die, their surviving relatives receive pensions for life , since they are considered the heirs of Palestinian “martyrs.” As aresult, knowing they may be executed if they are captured by Israel may deter at least some Palestinian terrorists, Their relatives may still benefit as the survivors of “martyrs,” but the terrorist themselves won’t benefit at all.
Too many islamists crave this as a one-way ticket to paradise and their stupid virgins. To me the solution is obvious but unfortunately unable to be implemented in a civilized country. In cases of Islamist terror those convicted should be executed via an enema of boiling pig fat. Let’s see how many are willing to risk that.
Bad move. The British hanged rebels both Jews and Arabs and it only left more ill feeling.
The shooting of the 1916 Easter rebels in Ireland turned the population against Britain and for Sinn Fein.
THe Germans shot Nurse Cavell – quite within the laws and customs of the time but it was a PR disaster in neutral countries.
@frankadam I don’t think Israel needs to worry about more ill-feeling from Jew-killers and their enablers. They just need to be neutralized for both practical and moral reasons.
@Frank
I think the three examples you provided here is of actions taken by an outside power which came to be characterized as an occupying oppressor, in part due to the examples you describe. Israel, however, is not occupying anyone, but is instead governing over its own people who elected the govt which passed a law which deemed terrorism to warrant the death penalty. This is an entirely domestic issue within Israel. Indeed, executing a terrorist which kills Israelis simply because they are Jews should actually be no less controversial than executing those guilty in America or the West who are only guilty of simple crimes of passion. When or if the Israeli public find this standard to be inappropriate, they will always have the right to change the govt with the power of the electoral process. There was no similar domestic voice injected into Mandate Palestine, nor to occupied Belgium, nor to British controlled Ireland.