An individual indicted for attempted murder is simply a failed murderer. In that respect, there is no difference between Eliran Malul, who in 2019 stabbed his wife – my sister – 32-year-old Michal Sela, and Aviad Moshe, who was convicted last week of the attempted murder of his ex-wife Shira Isakov, last year.
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Israel must employ a policy of zero-tolerance for domestic violence. The goal: zero victims a year.
Any defense expert worth their salt would agree that deterrence is a life-saving measure. This is only one of the reasons that the state must place the punishment for attempted murder on a par with the sentence for murder.
Malul is currently facing charges of murder with aggravating circumstances for killing my sister. If convicted, the law states he will be sentenced to life in prison. But if Moshe faces a maximum sentence of 20 years, meaning that by the time he is 65, he will again be walking among us and most likely dating again. This, of course, could happen sooner if he receives early parole for good behavior.
It gets worse: just last month the state released 89 prisoners convicted of domestic violence and incest over prison overcrowding. They were released without any rehabilitation and without any warning to their victims.
The popular folk saying asserts, "He who becomes compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate." And I ask: how many more victims must we offer until the justice system removes dangerous, cruel, and remorseless criminals from society for good?
We must not show compassion for murderers, and we must aggravate their sentences to the maximum. In a country truly predicate on law and order, a would-be wife-killer must know that he will automatically lose everything – his liberty, his children, his wife, and all his property.
In a country truly predicate on law and order, a woman who has survived an attempt on her life in her own home will receive an immediate divorce. Unfortunately, the reality in Israel is that the survivors of assassination attempts, like Isakov, are kindly asked by the state to wait until their husbands are kind enough to grant them a divorce, as required by the religious establishment.
The children of these murdered women could find themselves on the street because their home is the communal property of the slain woman and the killer, who can – from prison – decide the orphans be denied a roof over their heads.
Murderers are allowed to go on leave from prison, the state sponsors their university and pays for their legal expenses, and later they also go free. Some of them go on to murder again.
Eliran Malul and Aviad Moshe cannot be allowed to ever see the light of day again, both to ensure the victims get justice and to protect potential future victims, as well as to deter the next would-be killer.
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