Free Republic

The Almagor terror victims organization on Sunday contacted ministers on the Security Cabinet and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, demanding that they not block a new death penalty bill for terrorist murderers. The bill is being requested by incoming Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman as a condition for his Yisrael Beytenu party to join the coalition. While Liberman reportedly may fold on the demand for a new law, it seems that new instructions will be given to facilitate the death penalty for terrorists. Almagor Director Lt. Col. (ret.) Meir Indor spoke to Arutz Sheva on Sunday about the new bill, and former...

Negotiators from the Likud and Yisrael Beytenu parties have agreed to accept the latter’s demands for the death penalty for terrorist murderers, as a condition for entering the coalition government. According to the agreement, the IDF military court — which is technically able to level the death penalty, but maintains an unofficial moratorium on it — will be issued new instructions, by which a simple majority of two judges can hand down a death sentence to terrorists convicted of murder. Currently, the law requires all three judges to unanimously agree. …

Former Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has roundly condemned the reported agreement between the Likud and Yisrael Beytenu parties, to include provisions for implementing the death penalty for terrorists as part of a coalition deal. Under the agreement, a new directive will be issued to military courts, by which only a simply majority of two judges will be needed to sentence a terrorist murderer to death, as opposed to the unanimous requirement currently in place. Imposing a death penalty for terrorist killers was one of the key conditions set by Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman for entering the governing coalition. While...

Meretz Chairman MK Zahava Gal-On intends to petition the Attorney General to stop plans from Minister of Construction Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) to house immigrants from France in Judea and Samaria. Ariel sent a letter asking the Yesha Council where the flow of immigrants from France could settle, as France reels from a string of anti-Semitic attacks. France led the list of countries from which Jews made aliyah to Israel in 2014, with almost 7,000 new French immigrants, more than double the 3,400 who came last year. Aliyah is only expected to increase after the latest spate of anti-Semitic attacks....

The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel says the State Attorney's Office (SAO) and Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein have put politics before professionalism in the matter of Migron. The Forum asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to devote time in the next cabinet meeting to a discussion of the professional behavior of the SAO and the AG in legal proceedings regarding the community of Migron. Forum Director Nachi Eyal accused the Justice Ministry officials of purposely disobeying the government's decisions in the way they presented the official position on Migron in the High Court. Supreme Court President Asher Gronis ruled...

The State Attorney's Office has refused to file charges against a former lecturer at the Bezalel art school who wrote "death to the settlers" on his Facebook page. The man, Tzvi Elhayani, wrote: "Death to the settlers – because you are a spiritual murder of the nation of Israel." Following this publication, the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel asked the Attorney General and Government Legal Advisor to initiate an investigation on suspicion of incitement to murder. Attorney Dan Eldad of the State Attorney's Office wrote in his reply to the Forum that "the statement is infuriating" and that...

While the government has thus far refused to apologize to Turkey over a clash aboard a Gaza-bound boat in 2010, senior cabinet ministers are divided on the matter. Foremost among them are Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak; the former staunchly opposes an apology, while the latter supports it. “This is not a legal matter, but rather a political issue, and is not a question of defending IDF soldiers but of neglecting them, of irresponsibility on the diplomatic level,” Lieberman said Thursday. “If there is an apology, that means admitting defeat on the battlefield and the political...