Releasing Terrorists: Crime and No Punishment

“Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?” Marmeladov’s question came suddenly into his mind, “for every man must have somewhere to turn…”― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

Israel is being asked, yet again, to suspend all sane judgement and release murderers back into society.

It is being instigated by American Secretary of State John Kerry in his latest attempt to whitewash the fact that the U.S.-brokered peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are an abysmal failure.

One could ask: How does the undermining of the rule of law and making a mockery of it – never mind putting innocent Israeli lives at stake by releasing terrorists – help the “peace” process?

This amoral and abhorrent request that Israel succumb to psychological warfare and certain danger by releasing terrorists is inhumane and, I would say, also illegal.

Illegality of Releasing Terrorists

In a recent article for the Unity Coalition for Israel, an alliance of pro-Christian and Jewish organizations, Louis René Beres, professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University, explains the illegality of such a move:

“All countries coexist under a binding law of nations. A core element of this international law is the unambiguously sacred rule of Nullum crimen sine poena, or “No crime without a punishment.” An unchanging principle, drawn, significantly, from the law of Ancient Israel, it was reaffirmed for all nations at the precedent-setting Nuremberg Trials (1945-46).”

He continues, “No government on this earth has any legal right to free terrorists as a ‘goodwill gesture,’ or as a ‘gesture for peace.’ Terrorism is a criminally sanctionable violation of international law, a wrong that is never subject to any sanitizing manipulations by individual countries, however well-intentioned. In the United States, the president’s power to pardon purposefully excludes any violations of international law.”

Putting Israel in a no-win moral and psychological dilemma seems to be the new normal for the Obama administration; rumors last week indicated the use of American-Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, in jail for 29 years and who poses no danger to society, as a pawn in releasing terrorists. Is there any level of depravity to which the current US administration will not sink?

Judge, Jury and Executioner

Not only have Obama and Kerry sought to become the judge, jury and executioner of Israel and its citizenry; Kerry has taken it upon himself to do away with Israel’s demand for PA recognition of the Jewish State, attempting to redefine it as the “national homeland of the Jews” ever since PA President Mahmoud Abbas had declared his absolute refusal to comply. Here again, Kerry is attempting to usurp Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s authority.

Israel needs to begin thwarting these negotiations by declaring her rights, which were enshrined within international law via the San Remo Resolution in 1920 and later reconfirmed by the United Nations.

Rather than Releasing Terrorists, the US Should Protect Israel

The Jewish People’s historical rights are stated numerous times in the bible as well.  Their heritage is buried deep within the soil of the Land of Israel.

The Jewish People have faced pogroms and mass slaughter for millennia. Israel is the one and only home that they can turn to, and it is rightfully theirs. History has shown what happens when they do not have a home to call their own.

As the character in the Dostoevsky novel states: “For every man must have somewhere to turn…”

The Jewish State must be supported and protected.

Let us not be the generation that refuses to speak up for this righteous and moral cause.

This opinion piece was authored by Leslie-Ann Stoffel, a prolific Canadian blogger and staunch advocate for the Jewish State.
Date: Mar. 30, 2014

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