Arutz Sheva spoke with Brenda and Nahum Lemkos, the bereaved parents of 25-year-old Dalia Lemkos who was murdered by an Arab terrorist last November. On Thursday the terrorist, Maher al-Hashalmoun, was handed two life sentences by a military court - but the parents said it meant nothing.
"The terrorists, the murderers are bailed out, they're freed in some or other terrorist swap," said Brenda Lemkos, speaking from the court room in Ofer Prison north of Jerusalem.
In the Gilad Shalit deal of 2011 a full 1,027 terrorists were freed, and the outgoing coalition freed another 78 in a "gesture" for peace talks.
The bereaved mother explained "this terrorist, yes he's got two life sentences but they're not really worth anything," because now he is in jail as "a guest of the state of Israel."
The family called for the death penalty to be exercised against the murderer, a request that was denied by the court despite the penalty being on Israeli law books. It has only been used once, against Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann.
Barring the death penalty, Brenda Lemkos said that at the least they hope for legislation stipulating that convicted terrorist murderers cannot be freed. She added that due to the murder the family was "destroyed."
Jewish Home initiated a "life without parole" law that was passed last November, seeking to keep terrorists in jail.
However, Meir Indor, head of the Almagor terror victims organization, revealed to Arutz Sheva last year that the law is "practically ineffective." One of the key flaws he pointed out is that it doesn't address terrorists sentenced in military courts, as al-Hashalmoun was.
Another shortcoming he noted was that the law didn't apply retroactively to terrorists who were already sentenced prior to its passage, and that it leaves it up to the judge's discretion whether or not to sentence a terrorist without chance of parole.