An Israeli lawmaker is proposing a bill he said would prosecute members of the terrorist organization Hamas and their collaborators the same way perpetrators of the Holocaust were.
“The same norms applied to the Nazis should be assigned to Hamas terrorists and their collaborators,” said Amit Halevi, a member of Knesset, the legislature of Israel.
Mr. Halevi on Oct. 10 announced that he is planning to submit a bill for the “punishment of Hamas and Hamas collaborators” at next week’s opening of the Knesset session. The legislature is scheduled to return from its summer recess on October 15.
“The law will apply the norms that human society has assigned to the accursed Nazis criminals, and first and foremost the death penalty, to anyone who took part in these crimes toward our people and toward humanity,” Mr. Halevi, a member of the ruling Likud Party, wrote on Facebook.
Israel’s existing legal framework for the prosecution of crimes committed in Nazi Germany and Axis-controlled territories during the Second World War was established in 1950, the year after the new Jewish state won the war against its Arab neighbors. The law criminalizes “crimes against the Jewish people,” crimes against humanity, and war crimes, as well as many lesser offenses such as joining Nazi Party, working at concentration camps, and informing on Jews.
In an interview with Epoch Israel, Mr. Halevi said the reasoning behind his proposal is “very simple.”
“It’s a very simple idea—anyone who saw or heard of the horrendous crimes committed in the Gaza Envelope last Saturday will have immediately apprehended their cruel and sadistic nature, very similar to the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis,” he explained.
The Gaza Envelope is a group of towns and kibbutzim along the land borders with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. These communities were hit hardest when Hamas launched a large-scale offensive last Saturday, breaking through the fences surrounding Gaza and storming into Israel on motorbikes, pickup trucks, and motorized paragliders.
“This is a different type of event. I think that human society, other nations, including Islamic nations, want to hear a moral judgment in these kinds of situations,” he added. “Anyone who played a role in this atrocity will be sentenced to death. Their ashes will be scattered outside of Israel’s territorial waters, just as we did with [Adolf] Eichmann.”
The former head of the Gestapo Jewish Affairs Department, Eichmann was kidnapped from Argentina back to Israel for trial by a unit of the Mossad, the Israeli secret service. He was hanged in 1962 after being found guilty of all 15 charges, including 12 counts of crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
The execution of Adolf Eichmann remains the only time Israel has ever carried out a civil capital punishment.
In a call to action, Mr. Halevi said Palestinians who are not supporters of Hamas should either leave Gaza or join the fight against Hamas.
“Anyone currently in Gaza has two options: If he’s a member of Hamas, he will pay. If he’s a Gaza resident, he should flee from Gaza immediately,” he said. “The other option is for Gaza residents to attack the Hamas members. Anyone who brings the head of a Hamas member will become an honorary citizen.”
“Anyone living in the Gaza Strip should say, ‘I don’t belong in this sadistic, Nazi society,’ and they should flee.”
The lawmaker’s comments comes as Israeli troops are in preparation for a ground offensive into Gaza that could begin at any time. Israeli military has called up roughly 360,000 reservists to join the war effort, the largest mobilization since the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when 400,000 reservists were summoned after Egypt and Syria mounted a two-front surprise attack on Israel.
“We have only started striking Hamas,” said Israeli prime minister and Likud party head Benjamin Netanyahu. “What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”
