Minors under 14 who committed a nationalistically-motivated crime may start receiving prison sentences, if a bill authorized by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation Sunday becomes law.
The proposal by MK Anat Berko differentiates "terrorism", defined as crimes motivated by nationalism, from other crimes, for which minors under 14 cannot receive prison sentences.
The bill states that anyone under 14 who commits an act that falls under Israel's definition of terrorism will be kept in a locked children’s home until he or she turns 14, at which point he or she can be sent to prison.
Earlier this month, Palestinian cousins aged 12 and 13 stabbed a security guard on a light-rail car in Jerusalem’s Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood.
Berko said she plans to accelerate the bill’s passage into law as much as possible, because it could save lives.
“As long as the Palestinians recruit minors while knowing that the Israeli law does not have a real response to minor terrorists under age 14, we can only expect the phenomenon to spread, with the thought that anyway Israeli law enforcement will send the minors back home after they commit the acts,” Berko stated.
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation also conditionally approved a bill by MK Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu) that is the latest of several iterations of legislation meant to limit donations organizations can receive from foreign governments or entities funded by foreign governments.
According to Ilatov’s proposal, funding from a foreign country would not be exempt from income tax and any corporation, organization or person that is funded by a foreign country be considered a foreign agent.
Foreign agents would be required to report which countries fund them and what activities the aid is meant for. They would have to write that they are foreign agents on any websites, signs or advertisements they release. The fine for not doing so would be NIS 29,200.
The ministers approved the bill, but it will not go to a preliminary Knesset vote until a similar bill by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked moves to the legislature
Shaked’s “transparency bill” would require NGOs who receive most of their funding from foreign governments to declare that they do so in its publications and reports that are publicly available, in any contact in writing or at meetings with public officials or workers, and they will have to detail which foreign entities donated to them in the relevant years.
In addition, the NGO representatives will have to wear name tags with the name of their organization on it when they’re in the Knesset, as lobbyists do, and any violation of the law will carry a fine of NIS 29,200.
“The blatant intervention of foreign countries in the State of Israel’s internal matters through funding is an unprecedented, broadly-occurring phenomenon that violates all the rules and norms of relations between democratic countries,” Shaked said earlier this month.
By Lahav Harkov
