Israel’s Cabinet on Sunday approved a proposal to establish a team that will formulate policy on revoking state pensions and other benefits from the families of terrorists who are residents and citizens of Israel.
The proposal, put forward by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Welfare and Social Affairs Minister Meir Cohen, calls families of those who committed security offenses and acts of terrorism to lose state benefits.
According to a statement released by Bennett’s office, the team will be composed of the directors general of the Prime Minister’s Office, the Foreign Minister’s Office, the Public Security Ministry, the Justice Ministry, the Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry and the National Insurance Institute, as well as representatives of the Defense Ministry, the Intelligence Ministry, the Attorney General’s Office and the National Security Council.
“The team will, within 60 days of its being established, formulate recommendations and present them to the Cabinet on the relevant issues including recommendations regarding necessary legislative changes,” the statement said.
“We are determined to correct and deal with everything that has been neglected for years and to change the equation so that it will not be worthwhile to take part in terrorist activity against the citizens of Israel,” said Bennett at Sunday’s Cabinet meeting.
“As part of our effort, we will settle accounts with terrorists and with the circles that surround them. Giving state support payments to terrorist families is a complete absurdity and the time has come to correct this injustice,” he stated.
Lapid said that “terrorists and their families need to know that there is a price to attacking innocents. It is untenable that the state will continue to pay support payments to the families of terrorists that could have prevented attacks and loss of life.”
During the Cabinet meeting, Welfare and Social Affairs Minister Cohen stated, “This reality, in which citizens and residents of Israel turn against the other residents of the state, requires an evaluation of the means at the disposal of the various arms of the state, vis-à-vis both deterrence and punitive measures. We cannot sit idly by in the face of this wave of terrorism and the unacceptable reality in which citizens of Israel take up arms and go on murder sprees.”
