Itamar Update
The Israeli army is said to be seeking the death penalty for Hakim Awad and Amjad Awad, the two confessed murderers of five members of the Fogel family in the settlement of Itamar last March. This is an extremely unusual step in Israel: the death penalty has been sought very few times over the country's history, handed down even fewer, and is almost invariably commuted. The sole exception was Adolf Eichmann, who was executed in Israel in 1962.
Amnesty International is demanding that the IDF rescind the request. In a statement issued today, it said, "The murder of the Fogel family was a heinous crime, but exaction is a punishment that has no place in today's criminal justice system...Since the 1960s not one person was executed in Israel, and as of the 1990s the IDF has ceased its demands to sentence even terrorists responsible for the killing of many to death. Amnesty International has appealed [to] the IDF to stay the course with its current policy and to avoid using its authority to make such a demand."
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Comments :
Feb '11
Re: Itamar Update
Good idea. Otherwise they will just sit and wait for the next Gilad Shalit.
Mar '11
Re: Itamar Update
I've never understood the aversion to the death penalty. On the left, many of whom are unbelievers and think life ends with one's last breath, what significance can there be in death? If there is no life after death then what's the big deal? For believers a person's death is merely entrance to a world of more perfect justice and who can complain about that? Opponents of the death penalty insist that it cheapens life. I'd argue the opposite. When a person commits a crime that extinguishes the life of another what better payment could be made to value what was lost than one's own life?
May '10
Re: Itamar Update
This is why they shoulda executed them via IDF. Or at least captured them, ahem, interrogated them, and then pretended like they were shot resisting arrest.
On a vaguely related issue, why does Israel continue to trade living, breathing terrorists for scraps of bone and cloth purported to be Israeli citizens?
Mar '11
Re: Itamar Update
This is the long awaited beginning of the end for the misguided moratorium on the death penalty in Israel.
They should be executed slowly and painfully (the Uday Hussein method of feeding people feet first into a wood-chipper comes to mind), and then buried in pig excrement.
And to anyone who thinks that is "inhumane" - note that I am not advocating slaughtering their families the way they did to the Fogels.
Jun '10
Re: Itamar Update
Can't the Left just pretend that they're little unborn babies that would be too difficult, too inconvenient, to put up for adoption? That gets a death sentence almost everywhere.
Jun '10
Re: Itamar Update
This is certainly a case in which the death penalty is not only proper, but is the only proper penalty. Anything less would be a horrible injustice.
Nov '10
Re: Itamar Update
I agree. Completely. I have reservations about the death penalty--not as an appropriate punishment for the guilty but because I abhor the idea that even *one* innocent person might be executed as a result of a miscarriage of justice. But if these are, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the men who murdered the Fogel family in cold blood, they ought to die for their crimes.
Oct '10
Re: Itamar Update
Where, exactly, did the phrase 'an eye for an eye' come from? It's on the tip of my tongue.
Edited on May 26, 2011 at 3:00pmDec '10
Re: Itamar Update
"Since the 1960s not one person was executed in Israel, and as of the 1990s the IDF has ceased its demands to sentence even terrorists responsible for the killing of many to death."
And how has Israel's forswearing the death penalty worked in convincing terrorists to stop murdering Israelis?
If the death penalty deterred even a few terror attacks, the Palestinian lives saved because Israel would not need to retaliate for those attacks would certainly justify the executions. But Amnesty International is very selective about whose human rights it cares about.
Aug '10
Re: Itamar Update
Stone cold killers who sit around for life are a danger to guards and other prisoners. They have nothing to lose. Why take the risk that they'll harm someone else? If the law states that first-degree murder earns the death penalty, it's the killer who condemns himself, not the state.
May '10
Re: Itamar Update
Is this really what AI is talking about?
exaction [ɪgˈzækʃən]
n1. the act or an instance of exacting, esp money2. an excessive or harsh demand, esp for money; extortion3. (Business / Commerce) a sum or payment exacted
Anyhow, I can't think of a more appropriate and just outcome. But, I've always thought proven terrorists should be executed, especially since they so often end up freed in huge numbers in exchange for corpses. I'm all for bringing the bodies home for burial, but not when it leads to more dead innocents.
Aug '10
Re: Itamar Update
Let Amnesty International carry out a sincere, prolonged and thorough campaign to tell the World the story of the Fogels in all it's horror- and then let them call for mercy.
May '10
Re: Itamar Update
Severely Ltd.: Where, exactly, did the phrase 'an eye for an eye' come from? It's on the tip of my tongue. · May 26 at 9:20am
Edited on May 26 at 03:00 pm
The Code of Hammurabi. Oh, and the Bible.