The Israeli Knesset approved Wednesday the death penalty law for terrorists in a preliminary reading and in a narrow majority. 52 Knesset members supported the proposal and 49 opposed it in the 120 member legislature.
The bill was introduced by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party. Minister Yuval Steinitz, who expressed opposition to the law during the cabinet meeting at noon, voted for it.
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Members of Haredi party United Torah Judaism party, were absent from the vote (six votes) after the faction failed to reach an agreement with Liberman the “Supermarket Law” proposed by the Haredi Shas party to cancel local bylaws allowing the opening of businesses on the Sabbath. Liberman has expressed his objection calling the law ‘religious coercion’.
Before the vote, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed full support for the bill’s approval.
During the plenum, Netanyahu asked for permission to speak, saying that “we do not do it absentmindedly, but there is also basic justice in extreme situations. The death penalty in extreme situations has already been tested in Israel,” Netanyahu said. “This principle is already embedded in the legal reality and the assumption of justice for all of us.”
