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Edited by: TJVNews.com

A special joint Israeli Knesset committee on Monday approved the preliminary reading of a proposed law that would revoke Israeli citizenship, or residency, from terrorists who receive payments from the Palestinian Authority for their violent deeds, in a practice commonly known as pay-for-slay, according to a JNS report.

According to the bill’s provisions, a terrorist with Israeli citizenship who receives PA money as a reward will be stripped of Israeli citizenship through a legal process that involves the minister of interior submitting a request to a court, which will approve or deny the request. JNS reported that the process is to take place while the terrorist is in prison. Once the terrorist completes his prison term, he is released not back into Israel proper but to PA-controlled territory.

The proposed new law comes on the heels of one of the worst terrorist attacks targeting Israelis in many years. On Friday, evening, worshippers gathered at a synagogue in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood of Jerusalem when a 21-year old Palestinian gunman made his way inside the synagogue where the Shabbat services were taking place and shot seven people to death and several others were seriously wounded.

The Palestinian gunman was neutralized by security forces when he tried to escape the scene of the massacre in his vehicle.

The following morning, Muhammad Aliwat, 13, a resident of the predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in east Jerusalem, opened fire on an Israeli father and son, in the middle of the street, at the entrance to Jerusalem’s City of David, before being neutralized by an Israeli soldier, according to a report on the i24News web site.

Before leaving home to carry out his attack, Aliwat left a note in a class notebook, in which he expressed his desire to die in an attack on Jews, i24News reported. He also apologized to his mother, but said she was going to be proud of him. “God, or Victory or Martyrdom,” the boy wrote in the note.

The legislation is the brainchild of Palestinian Media Watch, an NGO that has been heavily involved in issues related to the PA’s pay-for-slay program. “We came up with the idea. We initiated it,” IDF Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, director of legal strategies for PMW, told JNS.

“The way that we explained the law throughout the Knesset hearings is that the Palestinian Authority sees all terrorists, including the Israeli Arab terrorists, as its soldiers. They say you can’t send a soldier to war without looking after his family. The terrorists see themselves as soldiers of the Palestinians, and when they request and receive payment from the PA as a reward for their acts of terror, they complete the cycle,” Hirsch said, according to the JNS report.

“What you have here is the creation of soldiers of a foreign and hostile entity. In such a case, it’s clear that it’s justified to revoke citizenship. There are, among other places, 12 different countries in Europe that consider just joining foreign armed forces a basis for canceling citizenship. Here we have not only joining a foreign army, as it were, but really fighting for and carrying out acts of terror on behalf of that foreign army and then being rewarded for those acts of terror.”

Hirsch said that the chances of the bill passing are excellent, JNS reported. “One hundred and six Knesset members have already expressed their support for the law,” he said, noting that the Labor Party may also join in the effort. “Potentially it will pass with a majority of 110 votes to 10.”

He expects the bill to become law within two to three weeks. JNS reported that it goes before the Knesset plenum next Monday for the first of three additional required votes. There will be further committee discussions, but those should go quickly as debate on most major issues has already been held.

The proposed law is one devoutly wished for by families of terror victims. Although there is a law on the books to revoke citizenship, Hirsch said it involves a “long and arduous process” and “there is no certainty at the end how the judge will decide,” as was reported by JNS.  The new bill would strip citizenship from a terrorist within six weeks, start to finish.

Micah Lakin Avni, whose father was killed by terrorists on the No. 78 bus in Jerusalem in October 2015, told JNS, “This is a law that should pass as soon as possible with a 100% majority. There is no conscionable argument for opposing this law. Any Knesset member who opposes this law will essentially be saying, ‘I support rewarding acts of terror aimed at killing Jews and destroying the State of Israel.’

“My father, Richard Lakin, was brutally murdered by two terrorists who held Israeli national identity cards. One of the terrorists is serving a life sentence in Israeli prison for his crime. It is unconscionable that the terrorist, whose stated aim is to kill Jews and destroy the State of Israel, and who receives monthly payments from the Palestinian Authority as a reward for killing my father, be permitted to vote in Israeli elections.

“The terrorist’s stated goal is to kill Jews and destroy Israel. He is our enemy and must be treated as such.”

Hirsch said the legislation is critical as Israeli Arabs make up a large proportion of terrorists, JNS reported. “There are 1,000 Israeli Arab terrorists in prison at the moment, which is one-fifth of the entire terrorist population. Of them, 300 are Israeli citizens, and 700 are permanent residents.”

Hirsch, who also heads the Minister of Interior’s National Advisory Committee for the Cancellation of Citizenship, expects the law to act as a major deterrent for would-be terrorists, as was reported by JNS. Although the terrorists carry out acts in the name of Palestinian nationhood, none of them appears to want to live under Palestinian rule.

“I think there are many terrorists who will forgo the payments in fear of losing their citizenship. When someone who lives in Jerusalem and can wander around the country freely suddenly finds that he’s going to find himself not only in prison but also potentially expelled to Gaza, it’s quite a deterrent,” Hirsch said, JNS reported.

He continued by saying: “I think it’ll be a deterrent to carrying out terror at all. And those who have already carried out their acts of terror will suddenly have the fear of God put in them that they will be released not to Jerusalem, not back to their cushy life, but suddenly to Gaza.”

Jail is not much of a deterrent because “conditions in general are quite good.” Prisoners pursue college degrees while receiving large payments from the PA, and once they exit prison they’re treated as national heroes—“not to mention that the sentences themselves are often very low,” said Hirsch, who had at one time served as head of the military prosecution in Judea and Samaria, JNS reported.

“This will either be a deterrent and will bring about a tremendous and drastic fall in the participation of Israeli Arabs in terror, or the alternative is that many of them will find themselves fulfilling their wish to be Palestinian,” he said.

Also on Monday, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir addressed the deadly Shabbat shooting attack during the weekly Otzma Yehudit faction meeting, Israel National News reported.

“The attack happened on my watch. The responsibility is mine and I do not intend for a moment to run from it,” Ben-Gvir began.

INN reported that he added that subsequent to the deadly attack in which seven Jews lost their lives, he ordered the demolition of illegal Arab buildings in eastern Jerusalem. “We are destroying houses, we will go from neighborhood to neighborhood. Governance starts with these things. I demanded the imposition a curfew in the neighborhood from which the danger came and to go from house to house and confiscate the weapons. I issued orders to scan the social networks, and to identify and arrest anyone who is carrying a weapon,” Ben Gvir said.

“Due to differences of opinion with the professional authorities, we are still in discussion but are not exhausting this ability, but I have instructed the police to act decisively,” Ben-Gvir added.

INN reported that he further stated that “soon we will introduce the death penalty law for terrorists, those who massacre civilians should get the electric chair.”

According to The Times of Israel, the Otzma Yehudit Knesset member made the announcement following a security cabinet meeting held late on Saturday night, a day after the synagogue attack in which three were also seriously wounded.  The terror attack came a day after an Israeli military raid in the town of Jenin in which 9 Palestinians who were plotting deadly terrorist attacks targeting Israelis were killed by IDF forces in the region.

“I hope we will pass it with a big majority,” Ben-Gvir said in a statement, adding that the security cabinet’s newly announced measures are “important”.

He also said he wanted “a lot more and I will continue and will strive for more and more decisions for combating terror.”

Yeshiva World News reported that Ben Gvir requested that the police compile a list of targets and gather intelligence with the aim of collecting weapons from neighborhood to neighborhood. If that isn’t possible, they will create a list of targets and intelligence.

TOI also reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said the security cabinet had decided on a series of steps to “combat terror and exact a price from terrorists and their supporters”.

Without providing further details, he added that steps will be taken to “strengthen settlements” in response to the attacks.

In November, Ben-Gvir made the introduction of capital punishment against Palestinians found guilty of killing Israelis a condition for his faction to join Netanyahu’s coalition government.

Also on Monday, the AP reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel and the Palestinians to ease tensions following a spike in violence that has put the region on edge. The bloodshed has alarmed the Biden administration as it attempts to find common ground with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new right-wing government.

Yet aside from appeals for de-escalation and restraint, Blinken did not publicly offer any particular ideas for calming the situation and it was not immediately clear from his meeting with Netanyahu that the administration would be proposing any, the AP reported. Blinken will meet Tuesday with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

“We’re urging all sides now to take urgent steps to restore calm, to de-escalate,” Blinken said after meeting Netanyahu, as was reported by the AP. “We want to make sure that there’s an environment in which we can, I hope at some point, create conditions where we can start to restore a sense of security for Israelis and Palestinians alike, which of course is sorely lacking.”

Also on Monday, World Israel News reported that dozens of Arab students waving Palestinian flags called for an intifada at the entrance to Tel Aviv University.

“We will not stop, even if there are a thousand funerals every day,” they chanted, as was reported by World Israel News.

“O shahid lie down lie down we will continue the fight…O settler  you coward, this is Jenin that cannot be defeated…From the river to the sea Palestine will be free…

“Listen, Zionists, listen, Palestine will not surrender, to the streets, you revolutionaries, set the streets on fire. With spirit and blood we will redeem Palestine!”

Across from them, several dozen students from the Im Tirtzu Zionist organization held a counter-demonstration, waving Israeli flags, WIN reported. “Demand that the supporters of terrorists be banned immediately. Students who demonstrate in favor of terrorists should be immediately removed from the public; this is a life-threatening situation for students,” stated Shai Rosengarten, the group’s national campus coordinator.

WIN reported that Orit Eliyahu, Im Tirtzu’s branch coordinator at Tel Aviv University, had appealed to the university president not to allow the murder-inciting event to take place – although it was held outside the campus gates and the university has no authority outside its premises, the NGO acknowledged.

In New York City, dozens of members of the vehemently anti-Zionist organization, Neturei Karta,  gathered for an anti-Israel demonstration in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Friday and Shabbat, according to a report on the Vois Es Nais web site. The demonstrators expressed their support for the terrorists killed in Jenin on Thursday during IDF operations in the city.

VIN reported that in disturbing footage released on social media, members of Neturei Karta  including young children and elderly men can be seen holding up pictures of the terrorists in Jenin, singing songs in Arabic which villify Israel and condemning Zionism in general.

(Additional reporting by Fern Sidman)