Capital Punishment
I decided to do today's cartoon after a "loyal reader" sent me a copy of "Capital punishment for capital crimes" by Caroline Glick. After discussing the horrifying crimes being perpetrated against us she notes that:
"ALL OF this raises the issue that polite Israeli society insists on sweeping under the rug: Israel's repeated willingness to release terrorists for live and dead hostages makes clear the need to implement the death penalty against terrorist murderers.The criminal code permits the death penalty to be used in cases of treason, murder, crimes against humanity, genocide and crimes against the Jewish people. The problem is not the laws on the books; the problem is the state prosecution's refusal to use them. Regardless of the nature of their crimes, the State Attorney's Office refuses to request that judges sentence terrorists to death." -moreSo are we too politically correct to protect ourselves? Is a twisted sense of morality keeping us from doing the right thing?Your thoughts?
Labels: Capital Punishment, Human Rights, Middle East, Prisoners, Terrorism
Submit To:→Digg it →del.icio.us →Technorati Favorites
19 Comments:
Here in the US we've had capital punishment for many decades and continue to have maybe the highest rate of homicide in the developed world. If it's revenge Israel wants, fine, but the overwhelming evidence is that capital punishment does not reduce capital crime. In fact, it appears to have the opposite effect
Doesn't have a bleep bleep thing to do with reducing capital crime!
It has everything to do with The Almighty's law.
The US, in steps by the politically correct to extend the full rights of citizens to terrorists and combatants held chiefly to exploit intel and interrogate, who are, under the laws of warfare due no more than a bullet; mirrors this "civilized" notion of human rights. It is, Bones, as you've observed, exploited by the Philistines.
The Al Jihadzerrah TV airs footage of one "innocent" shot in the back by Hamas/Hizboullah, in the face of the IDF's "purity of arms" doctorine, Herr Goebbels progeny are still at work. Perhaps PLO "heroes" swinging from the gallows would offer a chilling effect as opposed to the moral calculus that a judicial system has offed up that puts the IDF even more at risk.
How about some manditory time on the borders for prosecutors, where they are available as targets for hostage taking? If they're really politiaclly correct, perhaps they can skip the firearms and taek up a sling and five smmoth flat river stones.
I think the point is not revenge or deterrence. I think people pushing for capital punishment for terrorists are trying to avoid the situation where despicable live terrorists such as Kuntar, who was supposed to be serving several life sentences, are exchanged for our kidnapped soldiers, dead or alive.
One of the many things I admire about Israel is its moral stance against capital punishment. That one execution, of Eichmann, stands out vividly against a background of no capital punishment. Of course, Israeli jails have more inmates who are deserving of capital punishment than, probably, those of any other country. What I do object to, however, is the policy (however understandable) of letting terrorist killers like Samir Kuntar walk free in order to secure the release of some dead or a few living Israelis. Doing so only encourages more kidnappings, because they pay off so well.
I have had a lifelong abhorrence of capital punishment. It degrades everyone involved. And when it goes wrong and an innocent person is hanged, the injustice is palpable and irretrievable. Revenge is the very worst reason for resorting to the taking of human life.
Genuine lifetime incarceration in difficult conditions will destroy someone's life more effectively. To die is quick, but to sit in a cell for decades, watching your youth vanish, denied all the pleasures of life, eating, sleeping, and thinking about the things you did to bring you here - which of us would not find that unbearable?
The Torah is the Creator's handbook or manual for how Jews, --and only Jews, by the way, are to behave (the seven laws of Noah are the manual for the rest of mankind).
When someone murders, and there are reliable witnesses--at least 2 the murderer must be put to death.
In most countries, courts are no way as stringent as the Jewish courts were ordered to be.That is why innocents are put to death by a civil court (we're not even getting into political courts here).
A country at war, and Israel is at war, must protect itself.
If any Arab sees that he can murder men women and children and then be released again and again, doesn't it make sense, even to the most liberal, that the death penalty is necessary?
I've lived on two borders of Israel in my time, (now I live in small town in the north), and we were fired upon again and again, and nothing was ever in the news here (or abroad) unless someone was killed. You have no idea how much murderous aggression Israelis have to suffer if you don't read the Israeli papers--now conveniently in English.
When we are talking about civilian crime, we have to realize that there are many many factors involved in 'evidence' one way or another about results of capital punishment. If it is arbitrary and one race is over-represented, if there are gross differences in how the poor and the rich are sentenced, etc then 'evidence' is likely to be misleading--and of course innocents will be murdered by the state and criminals will be set free.
In a place like the United States, where people can easily be turned into hysterical mobs--north and south (check out your history if this sounds strange to you), there is no place for capital punishment.
But Israel is very different from America, and cannot be considered in the same framework.
As I'm a History buff I have to agree with the fact that when we still had hanging the crime rate was less than it is now, where it's death by lethal injection.
Years ago I had talked to a hangman who worked with three hanging judges, his words were that death by hanging in a public square was a gastly sight, but it prevented worse crimes from being commited.
As the parents would bring their children to twon to see the show, they'd buy them a lunch and then they'd tell them that this was what happened to bad people, as he said it that when you're dead there's no repreave.
Seems like world wide, society has become so worried about protecting the rights of criminals, we've neglected justice for the victims. Increase Mather, father of Cotton Mather, wrote that he would rather see 100 guilty go free than to execute one innocent person. We've take this to the point of absurdity when we release people we know are guilty and in effect, put the rest of us in prison in our own homes.
Eventually, Justice will be served, but woe to us if we neglect it when we have the chance to grant it. The Almighty gave us the His Law for a reason. Ignoring it eventually produces chaos, which is what we have now. The inmates are running the asylum.
As an American, I have found that in honoring the twin pillars of Judaism, the "politically correct" crowd emphasizes Mercy over Justice to the point where the result is neither justice NOR mercy, but the breakdown of the administration of human affairs entrusted to us by G-d in the Noahide Covenant to establish Courts of Justice.
As to whether or not execution reduces future criminal behaviour, I will believe that it does not after a terrorist who has been executed comes back and kills more innocent civilians.
The Goyiem will never really be happy with us.It is time to stop trying to please them. It is about time that Jews decided to be Jews.
i don't know why this cartoon remind me how Muslims gone mad for the danish cartoons which distort the image of Islam while they turn a blind eye for bin laden sept 11 attacks which distorted the image of Islam much much more.
Maybe it is time that Israel have a death penalty for terrorist. And instead of releasing their bodies, they cremate them and scatter the ashes into the Med.
That way no more Olmerts could trade Hizbollah or Hamas live terrorists or their bodies for dead Israeli soldiers.
Whatever happened to the Israel I admired when I was a young man? The Israel that said, in effect, "kill one Jew, suffer a hundred deaths of your people"?
No, I'm not Jewish, but I thought that kind of reaction was fitting and called for. I'd back it today, too, if you practiced it.
It seems to me there's a tactical reason not to invoke the death penalty for terrorists: publicized executions in the name of vengeance, as deserved as it may be, might encourage kidnapped Israelis (which may be soldiers or civilians) to be executed or worse in turn. So to keep any hope alive of bringing back hostages, one can only incarcerate a terrorist and pray they keep a cool head on the other side of the border.
What of the two soldiers, returned dead? It should be remembered that they were believed killed or seriously injured at the time of the kidnapping, as the body inspections supported. In addition, the latest signs that Gilad Shalit is likely alive support this concept.
But there's a deeper reason, too. In all of this kidnap business, we must ask ourselves what is our true purpose. The attitude that it is acceptable to sacrifice a life for the sake of denying the enemy a celebration a la Kuntar implies that the true goal is death or defeat of the enemy. Willingness to sacrifice our own desires for vengeance, however, to get back kidnapped Jews, implies the goal is survival of our people. And indeed, I believe every one of us can agree that this is the fundamental point of all of Israel. We did not create this country to kill Arabs; we created it merely to live ourselves.
Ouch, bad news, I am dedicating my site to debunking zionism with documentation. It will be painful
Our morality is one of the things worth defending. I say no stooping to their level. I say no capital punishment. (Technically, I am for the death penalty in certain extreme cases, but they are so few it's better to not have the option at all.)
What we need is for the Israeli government to NOT RELEASE the terrorists and KEEP them in prison.
send all terrorists and convicted bombers back to their mother home land in PIG skin wrapings, for dancing in their streets.
I think the death penalty for terrorism makes sense.
(It does NOT makes sense for Israeli hospitals to use resources to heal attempted suicide bombers who wounded themselves but did not die in their attacks.)
what is written? whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for man is made in the image of G-d...do we believe what is written, or not?
Post a Comment
Back to Current Posts