Israel's defense minister pushes death penalty for terrorists
Despite objections by Israel's security and defense establishments, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman a green light to push ahead with a bill allowing military courts to more easily sentence terrorists to death.
At the Nov. 6 session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Shuli Mualem of HaBayit HaYehudi asked Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman about his views on the death penalty for convicted terrorists. Argaman responded, as he has in the past, by saying that he unequivocally opposes capital punishment because it is not effective in fighting terrorism.
Argaman's position is unlikely to change HaBayit HaYehudi’s recent decision to support a death penalty bill that Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has been promoting for the past three years. The decision by the party's leader, Naftali Bennett, to back the flagship legislative initiative of his biggest rival is undoubtedly a feather in the defense minister’s cap.
Israeli law allows military tribunals to impose the death penalty by a unanimous decision, but such a ruling has never been handed down. Liberman’s draft law stipulates that a simple majority of judges would suffice.
Sharon Gal, a Knesset member for Liberman’s Yisrael Beitenu, first proposed the amendment in 2015, right after elections held in March that year. Four months later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly instructed his Likud ministers to oppose the measure.
