Jerusalem – Measures increasing the punishment for adults and minors who throw rocks passed first readings in the Knesset Monday night.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the bills “part of a series of steps that the Security Cabinet adopted in the framework of the fight against terrorism. There will be other steps.”
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked presented her ministry’s bill to the Knesset, saying it is meant to fix a situation in which rock-throwers were given minimal punishments.
For example, she recounted, someone who was convicted of throwing rocks or firecrackers at soldiers received a four-month suspended sentence and an NIS 2500 fine. Another 22-year-old terrorist only served a three-month prison sentence for throwing rocks at police.
“Since the Jewish People returned to its land, there are those who tried to prevent it with force. Terrorism didn’t start today and not in 1967 like it is comfortable for some people to tell themselves…It has been happening for over 100 years. Our enemies will use any means,” she said.
Shaked said that Israel uses stones and Iron to build, while its enemies use them to destroy.
“Justice is with us, and thank God, after thousands of years, the power is with us, too,” she added, commending security forces for fighting terrorism. “My job as justice minister is to make things easier for security forces in any way in this just battle and to allow the judiciary to deal with the current tools of destruction. I also want those who rise up against us to understand that there is a price for terrorism.”
One of the bills in question sets four years as the minimum sentence for rock-throwing, and adds rocks to the definition of a dangerous weapon.
The second bill states that if a minor is caught throwing rocks with a nationalist motive or in connection to terrorist activity, a judge may decide to freeze his or her parents’ National Insurance Institute and other benefits for the period during which the minor is in prison, and the parents could be fined for an amount higher than the frozen benefits.
Previously, a minor could be sent to jail or the parents could be fined, but the new legislation would allow both penalties simultaneously.
The bill will have to pass two more votes in the Knesset before it becomes law, which the coalition hopes will take place as early as next Monday.
On Sunday, MK Ahmed Tibi (Joint List) alleged that the government is “pouring fuel on the fire by increasing penalties for Palestinian minors after easing open-fire instructions, and has brought on a ‘Wild West’ atmosphere in which Arabs are killed on the streets of Israel.
“Palestinians do not need incitement, because the government of Israel and its decisions, and the occupation and its injustices are the incitement that motivate their rage,” Tibi claimed.
These new punishments are still pathetically soft. Shoot to kill and then throw the family if terrorists out if Israel, raze their homes and build homes for Israeli Jews on the land!
Good start.
Will the same penalties apply when Haredim throw rocks at police and soldiers?
By the time all these bills need to pass all the countless readings in the knesset, the damage, and casualties to innocents will be getting out of hand, and there will be a sense of lawlessness, where bands of citizens will become reckless, therefore either get the punishment meted out immediately namely the death sentence (with or without the guaranteed 72 virgins) or the Israeli government should learn from China their instant remedy for such volatile violence, the first step being to expelled all of the media, and surgically using military tools to totally remove the leaders who are inciting and indoctrinating, the hatred, for good in all areas especially East Jerusalem. It goes without saying that the very first step is to shut down all social media, and Internet in the region indefinitely, as China did its nortwest Muslim province of Xinjiang.
Ahmed Tibi member of Israel parliament says it the way it it, namely that these young indoctrinated Arabs have absolutely nothing to lose, rather only to gain, out of despair, plus their families will get financial support from the terror organization charity arm, so it’s a win win, even if they get killed in their despicable act, their families are supported indefinitely, and their homes rebuilt, and they go directly to paradise as holy martyrs, so they have the best of both worlds! Since they actually believe they go directly to paradise when shot by Israeli police or an Israeli soldier in self defense, let’s send them all to paradise including their leaders in one “shot”! Let their leaders who are brainwashing and indoctrination the youth to give their lives, let the leaders set the example by becoming holy martyrs themselves, and practice what they preach!
oh yeah i remember seeing in the news a rabs throwing rocks at us soldiers in afganastan and the soldiers gave them candy not!