WIDOW OF MURDERED ISRAELI POLICE OFFICIAL WANTS DEATH PENALTY FOR TERRORISTS

Current punishment is not a deterrent

By Hadas Mizrahi

Israel Hayom
January 4, 2018

On Wednesday, the war against terrorism in Israel achieved a major goal. A law calling for the death sentence for terrorists, which makes the death sentence more easily applicable, passed a preliminary reading.

The Choosing Life forum for bereaved families has received a lot of help from the Zionist group Im Tirtzu and has been following the progress of the death sentence bill for months, with the deep belief that punishment for terrorist murderers must be upped a notch. The matter became more urgent after particularly horrific attacks like the one in Adura in 2002, when a terrorist breached a home and slaughtered four family members, including 5-year-old Danielle Bat-El, the daughter of my good friend Shiri Shefi; and the attack in Kiryat Arba in 2003, in which my friend Batsheva's parents, Rabbi Eli and Dina Horowitz, were murdered in their home.

Among families who have lost loved ones to terrorism, especially those who were the victims of terrorists who perpetrated attacks after being freed in prisoner exchange deals like the one for Gilad Schalit – like the attack in which my husband, Israel Police Supt. Baruch Mizrahi – there is an understanding that the existing punishments, such as demolishing terrorists' homes or stopping stipends to the terrorists and their families, are insufficient – often ridiculous – and certainly don't create effective deterrence.

We aren't naïve. We've seen how politicians arrive to comfort families at the shiva and make speeches about "the death sentence," but immediately afterward disappear and blame the attorney general or the chief military prosecutor for not demanding it in court.

This bill passing, if only as yet in a preliminary reading and with more discussion and battles over it in various committees to come, is a clear declaration that this tool exists and we intend to use it. The prime minister and the defense minister supported the bill, and now it remains to be seen whether they will employ the weapon they created.

The role we bereaved families played in the process is to ensure that the bill is not beaten down in committee and that all discussions of it are completed quickly, and that the bill passes in the Knesset plenum. The intention behind the bill and the declaration are not enough for us. We will continue to fight until the government starts using the death penalty against terrorists!

Hadas Mizrahi is the widow of Israel Police Supt. Baruch Mizrahi, who was murdered in a terrorist shooting west of Hebron in 2014.