Yisrael Beytenu enlists bereaved mothers for campaign

Bennett to Liberman: There already is a death penalty law, and your ministers voted to release terrorists.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman addresses a town hall meeting in Beersheba (photo credit: FACEBOOK)
Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman addresses a town hall meeting in Beersheba
(photo credit: FACEBOOK)
Mothers and daughters of people killed in terrorist attacks joined Yisrael Beytenu’s campaign, expressing support for the party’s proposal of a death penalty for terrorists in campaign ads aired on Wednesday.
Each of the four videos ends with Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman vowing that the first bill his party will propose in the next Knesset is capital punishment for terrorists.
“We need to give a clear, strong answer to the whole world that there is a law, there is a death penalty for terrorists.
It’s a serious, important law,” said Larissa Gutman, whose 19-year-old son Ilya was killed in the 2001 attack on the Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv.
Tamara Fish-Lipschitz and her father, Avraham Fish, were both shot by terrorists in 2002 near Nokdim. Fish-Lipschitz was eight months pregnant, while both she and her baby survived, her father was killed at age 65.
“Anyone who picks up a weapon to kill should know that he won’t see his family or his children again,” she said.
“I think we need to make sure there isn’t anyone to release. People with blood on their hands should not sit in jail.”
Fish-Lipschitz added: “A person who murdered must get the death penalty. Then the country won’t have a dilemma whether to release [terrorists] or not, because there won’t be anyone to release.”
Two other videos feature Irena Sklianik, mother of 15-year-old Yael-Yulia, who was killed in the Dolphinarium, and Ruthy Ish-Ran, whose son Yossi, was murdered together with Kobi Mandell, both 14, near their home in Tekoa in 2001.
Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett tweeted at Liberman: “Yvet [Liberman’s Russian name]: 1. You know that there is already a death penalty law, right? 2. You know that two of your ministers voted for releasing terrorists, right? #FYI” “Article 21(7) of the Military Justice Law. It already exists.
The problem is that it is not implemented. Meanwhile, it would be preferable to not vote in favor of freeing terrorists,” Bennett wrote in a second tweet.
Liberman was not a minister at the time the cabinet voted on freeing terrorists, and he gave his ministers freedom to vote according to their conscience.
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, who is not running for the next Knesset, and Immigration and Absorption Minister Sofa Landver both voted in favor of the prisoner release, while Tourism Minister Uzi Landau and Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir, neither of whom is running in the current election, voted against it.
Liberman responded that he hopes Bennett is aware of the fact that, thus far, no terrorists have been executed.
“The time has come for the law to not only allow [the death penalty]; it should require it, as we are proposing and plan to do,” Liberman said.
The Yisrael Beytenu chairman said that, rather than “attack his friend in the nationalist camp,” Bennett and the members of his list should sign the petition on Yisrael Beytenu’s website advocating the capital punishment for terrorists.
The death penalty in Israel was only used once, on Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann in 1962.


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