The UK tabloid The Sun, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lachlan Murdoch’s News Corp., on Saturday, speculated that “Hamas terrorists who murdered, raped & kidnapped innocents will be hanged in the first Israeli death penalty in six decades.” The tabloid noted that “It would be the first time Israel has executed anyone since the only time it did so in 1962.”
Actually, capital punishment has been carried out twice in Israel’s history. Traditionally, it has been reserved solely for cases of treason, genocide, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the Jewish people committed during wartime. Israel is one of just seven countries that have abolished the death penalty for all crimes except the most heinous offenses.
Now, according to The Sun, at least 22 Hamas terrorists are expected to be indicted for their involvement in the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities hardest hit during the October 7, 2023 massacre.
The kibbutz, located just a mile from the Gaza border, was assaulted from three directions, with Hamas terrorists indiscriminately killing residents during the onslaught. Or, as The Sun put it: “Spineless terrorists torched homes as families cowered inside before dragging hostages, including Shiri Bibas and her son Ariel and Kfir and Oded Lifshitz, back to Gaza.”
The Sun claims that Israel’s top prosecutors believe that, due to the exceptionally brutal nature of the crimes committed by Hamas, the perpetrators are likely to face the death penalty. The Sun adds, “It would be the first time the country has executed anyone since the only time it did so in 1962 when wicked Nazi Adolf Eichmann was executed.”
Spineless terrorists? Wicked Nazi? Welcome to the wonderful world of UK tabloids. On March 13, 1986, The Sun ran one of its most memorable headlines: “FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER.” The article claimed that comedian Freddie Starr, while staying at the Birchwood, Cheshire home of his friend Vince McCaffrey and McCaffrey’s partner, Lea LaSalle, returned from a late-night nightclub performance and, finding little food in the house, allegedly placed LaSalle’s pet hamster between two slices of bread and began eating it.
The hamster headline still cannot top the 1983 headline of another Murdoch publication, the NY Post, HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR.
To support its prediction of capital punishment issued against 22 Hamas prisoners, The Sun cites Alan Baker, 78, a former Israeli ambassador to Canada who served as a military prosecutor in the 1970s. Baker said Israel was also no longer concerned by international pressure in dealing with the mass hanging of Nukhba terrorists with Jewish blood on their hands.
Baker told The Sun: “About 30 years ago, I was the prosecutor on the trial of a particularly nasty and cruel terrorist, and I managed to get him convicted with the death penalty. It wasn’t carried out at the time, because of a theory that it could encourage terrorists to do more horrific acts if they feel like they are going to die anyway.”
But Baker insists that things have changed since his time in the military prosecution, and “In these particular cases, because of the cruel nature of these atrocities, I don’t think the sensitivity of what world will think will be considered, as there is now the feeling that the rest of the world inevitably hate us whatever we do.”
In March 2023, the Knesset approved a preliminary reading of a bill proposing the death penalty for terrorism-related offenses, passing by a vote of 55 to 9. The legislation was introduced by a member of the Otzma Yehudit party.
