Death penalty would be a victory for terrorists
Op-ed: What will the populist ministers and MKs who support a death sentence for terrorists say when the first Israeli soldier is executed on the streets of Jenin or in alleys of Khan Younis?
It's not that terrorists don't deserve the death penalty. They certainly do. But it's not by chance that Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann has been the only person so far to be executed by hanging in Israel.
"Serious" terrorists will receive prison sentences of decades and sometimes a dozen life sentences, but many of them will be set free in different prisoner exchange deals.
It's very possible that a death sentence will deter terrorists from carrying out their atrocious acts here and there. But the Arabs around us, and the ones further away, are world champions in executions. They defeat us big time when it comes to this issue.
All the populist ministers and Knesset members who support a death penalty for terrorists in order to collect votes are great heroes when they talk about theoretic executions. But they will be the first ones to cry out from every stage, "It's wasn't me, it wasn't me," when the first Israeli soldier is hanged on the streets of Jenin or in the alleys of Khan Younis.
The stomachs and hearts of the State of Israel's citizens cannot take such images when they involve IDF soldiers, settlers or civilians who can be abducted from anywhere in the country. To this very day, 50 years later, Israeli citizens are shocked by the image of intelligence agent Eli Cohen being hanged in a Damascus square.
Netanyahu did the right thing when he stopped the race towards the hanging posts at its onset. It's not that the terrorists don't deserve it, but they can be the only ones who will "profit" from such a move.
