On Monday evening, shortly after another report of an Israeli soldier killed in the fighting in Lebanon, on a day when Iranian missiles struck several cities in Israel and the country’s central oil refinery, champagne was popped in the Knesset. 

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a convicted criminal with various offenses including incitement to racism and support for a terrorist organization, led the celebration, which took place in an underground hall protected from missile strikes. The cause for celebration was a new law that passed in the Knesset – the death penalty for terrorists law.

The death penalty has always existed in the Israeli legal code, but it was only applied once, in 1962, against the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was convicted of crimes against humanity. The initiative for the new law comes from the “Jewish Power” party of Minister Ben-Gvir, the successor to the “Kach” movement, which was declared a terrorist organization in 1994 after one of its leaders, Baruch Goldstein, carried out a mass shooting at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

The new law seeks to lift various........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)