Terrorists Deserve an Expedited Death Penalty

It is manifestly unjust that the American public has to wonder if a terrorist who brazenly guns down an innocent couple in the streets of our capital while shouting about a conflict half a world away will ever receive the punishment his actions demand. For those who don’t already know, two young people, one Israeli and the other American, were shot and killed, allegedly by a “Free Palestine” activist-turned-terrorist, as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., last night. Those who knew them said the two were soon to be engaged. Yaron Lischinsky, who grew up in Israel and Germany, the son of a Jewish father and Christian mother, was planning to take Sarah Milgrim, a young Jewish woman from Kansas City, to Jerusalem to meet his family and to propose to her. He worked for the Israeli Embassy as a researcher; her work for the embassy was to organize missions to Israel. In short, an American citizen gunned down a young woman from Kansas and a young man living as a guest in our country in the name of “Palestine,” mere yards from the monuments and charters that delineate what we are and what we stand for.

While I am ordinarily opposed to the death penalty because of man’s fallenness and our inherent error, there are times when the death penalty is the only action that can fulfill the debt of justice owed. For one, we have a professing assailant who is acting as a foreign combatant. For another, he evidently targeted his victims because of their association with a particular religion, culture, and country that the killer despised, and because he assumed they were Jews. There is nothing to be done with someone so lost to his hatreds but to impose the death penalty, and do so expeditiously.

About the Author

Luther Ray Abel

Luther Ray Abel is an Associate Editor for National Review. A veteran of the U.S. Navy, Luther is a proud native of Sheboygan, Wis.

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It is manifestly unjust that the American public has to wonder if a terrorist who brazenly guns down an innocent couple in the streets of our capital while shouting about a conflict half a world away will ever receive the punishment his actions demand. For those who don’t already know, two young people, one Israeli and the other American, were shot and killed, allegedly by a “Free Palestine” activist-turned-terrorist, as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., last night. Those who knew them said the two were soon to be engaged. Yaron Lischinsky, who grew up in Israel and Germany, the son of a Jewish father and Christian mother, was planning to take Sarah Milgrim, a young Jewish woman from Kansas City, to Jerusalem to meet his family and to propose to her. He worked for the Israeli Embassy as a researcher; her work for the embassy was to organize missions to Israel. In short, an American citizen gunned down a young woman from Kansas and a young man living as a guest in our country in the name of “Palestine,” mere yards from the monuments and charters that delineate what we are and what we stand for.

While I am ordinarily opposed to the death penalty because of man’s fallenness and our inherent error, there are times when the death penalty is the only action that can fulfill the debt of justice owed. For one, we have a professing assailant who is acting as a foreign combatant. For another, he evidently targeted his victims because of their association with a particular religion, culture, and country that the killer despised, and because he assumed they were Jews. There is nothing to be done with someone so lost to his hatreds but to impose the death penalty, and do so expeditiously.