'If Boston can execute an Islamic terrorist, so should Israel'

Avigdor Liberman vowed not to join Netanyahu's coalition unless it committed to enacting a law requiring the death penalty for terrorists.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman (photo credit: REUTERS)
Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman vowed Saturday that he would not join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition until there were changes to the government’s guidelines - specifically the inclusion of a pledge that Israel would adopt a law mandating the death penalty for anyone convicted of terrorism.
“Even liberals understand that terrorists deserve the death penalty,” Liberman wrote on his Facebook page Saturday evening.
To back his argument, Liberman cited the recent decision by a US federal jury to sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a co-accomplice in the bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013, to death.
On his Facebook post, Liberman incorrectly stated that the sentence was handed down by a jury from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
“The decision by the Massachusetts jury to sentence the terrorist to death proves that even in Boston, the capital of global liberalism, higher education, and scientific research, they understand that giving the death penalty to terrorists is the most appropriate manner to combat terrorism.”
“When a sentence like that is given there, and not in Texas or Alabama, states where the death penalty is commonplace, then one can see that even the most liberal people in the world understand that an uncompromising, iron fist is needed to deal with Islamic terrorism that is growing more extreme.”
During an appearance on Channel 2’s Meet the Press on Saturday, Liberman said that he decided against joining Netanyahu’s coalition after determining that it was “a government of opportunists.”