Justice Minister Yariv Levin held a meeting yesterday (Thursday) where he presented an enforcement policy for legally dealing with expressions of support for terrorism and incitement to commit acts of terrorism since the beginning of the war. At the meeting, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Mirara stated that the policy of the Attorney General and State Attorney’s Office is to go after all crimes of incitement and identification with terrorism to the fullest extent of the law, especially in this sensitive period.
Levin and Miara’s joint statement read “accordingly, since the beginning of the Swords of Iron War, on the instruction of the State Attorney, the State Attorney’s Office filed a series of indictments and requests for arrests until the end of legal proceedings against all those who incited to terrorism and identified with terror organizations, and also adopted additional actions. Minister Levin stressed the importance of determined action by enforcement agencies to prevent these cases, especially when the state is at war.”
The day before (Wednesday), the Knesset passed the amendment to the Terror Publications Consumption Law on the first vote, with 17 MKs voting for and 8 MKs from the Ra’am and Joint List parties voting against. The amendment proposes to “add as a temporary order for a period of two years, a crime which will prohibit the systematic and ongoing consumption of particular publications of the Hamas and ISIS organizations which include words of praise, admiration or encouragement to terror acts or documentation of terrorist acts accompanying the consumption of the publications. However, consumption of publications done at random, in good faith, or for a good purpose will not be prohibited consumption.”
The explanatory preamble states that “the temporary order was meant to enable, for a limited period after which the need for an extension will be examined, an additional tool in the struggle against terrorism, with an emphasis on individual terror attacks, characterized by the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks, as a rule, not belonging to terrorist organizations but that the motivation for committing the acts derives from the intensive consumption of terrorist publications by terrorist organizations of particular characteristics.”