URL to article: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/steven-plaut/the-israeli-left-pursues-the-treason-vote/
It has long been Israel’s answer to merging Orwell with Chelm, the mythical town of amusing stupidity in Jewish folklore. For years, the Israeli government has provided social security and other social welfare payments to convicted Arab terrorists and murderers. If an Arab otherwise entitled to unemployment insurance, welfare payments, pensions, or other “social” payments happens to engage in terrorism and happens to be imprisoned, he and his family continue to receive the welfare payments. If the terrorist dies, his dependents collect survivor benefits, like orphans in the US whose parent has passed away but was covered by social security. Terrorists disabled while planting bombs or attacking Jews could collect disability insurance stipends.
In 2012, an initiative was begun in the Knesset led by David Rotem (from the Yisrael Beitenu party), to cut the stipends and pensions paid to convicted murderers and terrorists by 50%. That is correct – the Knesset was only one-half working against welfare support for terrorists, by preserving only half of the stupidest idea in human history. Rotem wanted to eliminate the Paychecks for Terrorists Program altogether but there was too much opposition from the rest of the Knesset and the government’s pin-headed lawyers. Israel’s Ministry of Justice bureaucrats opposed any reduction in the welfare benefits for the mass murderers. It would be unjust, you see. Insensitive to the needs of the families of the terrorists. The Israeli Left denounced the initiative as “anti-democratic.”
This past week a related initiative in the Knesset sought to deny pensions to convicted terrorists freed from prison, such as in any of those mind-numbingly stupid “prisoner exchanges” in which Israel sets the mass murderers free to wander the avenues and byways. The bill does not really strip them of welfare payments altogether, it just says they cannot start collecting benefits until the full prison term to which they had been sentenced is finished. That way they cannot collect early if they are released before the end of the sentence.
What is amazing is that the Israeli Left voted against the bill. How dare anyone deny terrorists and their families the benefits of Israeli welfare payments! The Menshevik Israeli Labor Party voted against the bill, showing that its electoral strategy seems to be to challenge the ultra-leftist Meretz party over which party will attract the most votes from the treason constituency. But even within the Netanyahu coalition, there were dissidents who voted against the bill and in favor of the terrorists.
In particular, Amram Mitzna voted for the terrorists. Mitzna is now a member of Tzipi Livni’s party, which is part of the Netanyahu coalition. This is the same Mitzna who once was a contender for Prime Minister from Labor, and before that served as the Third-Worldish mayor of Haifa.