Proposed legislation to apply the death penalty to convicted terrorists seems set to be approved by the Knesset, although at least one coalition party intends to vote against its adoption.
On Wednesday of this week, a preliminary vote will be held on the bill in the Knesset plenum, after which (if the bill passes) the legislation will be sent to the relevant Knesset committee to be debated and possibly amended before it returns to the Knesset for the first of the three votes needed to make it law. Meanwhile, the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party has announced that it intends to vote "against" due to reasons rooted in Jewish law (halakha).
Sources within UTJ explain that if a law is passed requiring the death penalty for terrorists, there exists the possibility, however remote, that at some point in the future such a law will be applied to Jews who kill Arabs in what could be defined as terrorist incidents. According to Jewish law, only a Sanhedrin, a council of Jewish Sages, may apply the death penalty to a Jew. Although cases of Jews murdering Arabs in terrorist instances are thankfully extremely rare and likely to remain so, the possibility that a future government could extend the principle cannot be discounted, UTJ sources maintain.
According to a report on Army Radio, the government is considering allowing UTJ's Knesset members to vote according to their conscience on this issue. The legislation is expected to pass nonetheless, as the opposition Yisrael Beytenu party has stated that it intends to vote in favor.
The position of the other haredi party in the coalition, the Sephardi Shas party, has yet to be made clear. An unnamed Shas minister was quoted by the Kikar Hashabbat news website as being opposed to the legislation, and as having noted that, "Senior security officials are warning that this will cause more harm than good.
"Even if the courts do apply the legislation and sentence a terrorist to death," he explained, "by the time the trial is over, the terrorist will have become a hero in the Arab world and this will only spur further attacks. We see this as a dangerous law that could cost lives, and this is the position we will be presenting to the Council of Torah Sages," the source concluded, referring to the rabbinic council that guides the decisions of the Shas party.
According to Kikar Hashabbat, one of the members of the Council has already spoken out against the bill, calling it "dangerous" and advising the Shas Knesset members to vote "against." In the past, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Yitzhak Yosef, has also spoken out against the adoption of such a law when it previously came up for discussion, citing the same reservations as are now being expressed by UTJ.