A bill that would impose the death penalty on any terrorist who took part in the Hamas massacre of over 1,300 Israelis on Simchat Torah was submitted in the Knesset today (Monday).
The bill was submitted by MK Amit Halevi (Likud) and received the support of 40 other MKs.
Halevi lifted the text from the Law Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law enacted in Israel following the Nuremberg Trials and adjusted it to apply to Hamas terrorists in his new bill.
MK Halevi explained that he submitted the bill "in view of the similarity of the atrocities, which were identical to the crimes against humanity committed by the Nazis."
"I appeal to the other MKs to support the proposal and to the heads of the coalition to bring it to a vote in the plenary this week." He clarified that "this is the moral minimum that we, as members of the Israeli Knesset, owe to our conscience and to the entire human civilization, which stands dumbfounded in the face of these atrocities."
Israel abolished the death penalty for all crimes but treason in 1954. A separate law allows for the death penalty against Nazi war criminals. The only time the death penalty has been carried out in Israeli history was against Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Nazi 'Final Solution,' in 1962. The last time any Israeli prosecutor sought the death penalty against a defendant was against John Demjanjuk, a former concentration camp guard who was sentenced to death in 1988. The Israeli Supreme Court overturned the sentence in 1993 and he was allowed to return to the US.