Yigal Amir’ recent petition to be allowed to have children, via artificial insemination, with his ‘wife’, Professor Larissa Trimbobler, has finally been accepted. After being denied the right of connubial relations in previous court hearings, Amir, sentenced to a life sentence in solitary confinement, believed that his basic human rights have been violated, despite the gravity of his crime. A group of appeal judges overturned earlier rulings, now allowing Amir and Trimbobler to conceive a child together by invirtro insemination. Yigal Amir, as we all recall, was Yitzhak Rabin‘s cold blooded killer and the man who single handedly killed one of the truly unique qualities that Israel held as a nation. – the feeling that we were all one people, that despite our differences we always behaved like human beings.
Since 1948, a number of notable capital crimes have been committed in the Jewish State, including those by parents to their own children, crimes by terrorists, and numerous others. The fact that this act of murder was perpetrated against a head of state, and was coldly and meticulously planned and carried out, makes the crime unique. Amir may very well be a “truly gentle person”, as his attorney, Ari Shamay, refers to his client. But this does not excuse the deed that was committed, no matter what the intended reasons were.
Yigal Amir is alive today simply because the Israeli judicial system does not advocate Capital Punishment, i.e. the death penalty, for Capital crimes. Although an exception was made in regards to the execution of convicted Nazi War Criminal Adolf Eichmann, no other perpetrator of murders or similar crimes has been formally executed after being convicted by an Israeli court of justice. This includes a number of terrorists, both Arab and non-Arab, who committed very heinous crimes against Israelis during the past fifty seven years of Israel’s existence.
Let’s compare this record with that of other countries which still practice Capital Punishment for murders, heinous sex offenses, and other similar crimes. I’m referring to Western, democratic countries, and not countries where the value of human life is such that Capital Punishment is not only condoned, but actually commonplace. For comparison, therefore, let’s note what is occurring in the United States of America, where Capital Punishment is statutory and carried out in most of the country’s 50 states and territories. Although the method of execution for such crimes, by lethal injection, is now more or less universal in America, the fact that it is regularly carried out in many states, and without any appreciable decrease in the crimes resulting in this form of punishment, makes one wonder about the system of justice in a country priding itself on its system of jurisprudence.
Amir, for all his misguided “good intentions” and despite his wanting to “save the State of Israel from the evils of the Oslo Accords” still did what he did, and is paying the price for his actions. One wonders what would have happened to him had he been a U.S. citizen, living somewhere in the U.S.A, and committing the same deed against a sitting U.S. President. Americans did not have the chance to witness what might have happened to accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, following the slaying of President John F. Kennedy in November, 1963. Oswald himself was killed only three days later by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner who managed to enter the parking area of the Dallas police headquarters due to his being familiar with the Dallas Police Department.
Amir has alleged that his “basic human rights” have been violated, but not being able to create a child. He should actually be thankful that Israeli justice has allowed him to survive, study, and contemplate life’s mysteries; despite the gravity of his crime. What better ‘basic human right’ than that?
June 16, 2006 at 6:46 pm
One can only wonder how this child of Yigal and Larissa will feel when confronted with his or her father’s ‘unique’ past. How can he/she live with this kind of thing? Besides, Larissa already has 4 children from a previous marriage. Why does she want to assume the reponsibility of raising another child, who will never have any real relationship with the father.
As most Israelis would say: “Haval al hazman!”