To start off, the Israeli TV stations (State-owned?) did the right thing. They aired teasers for an interview with Yigal Amir, the killer of Yitzhak Rabin the other day. After public outrage, they said they would not air the telephone interview. Good; best thing to do in a bad situation. That being said;

What the heck were these pinheads thinking? Who the hell would think anyone wants to know why this dickhead decided to pop the PM? Don't any journalists have any sense of decency?

Extra bonus outrage. Amir did the interview on the phone claiming to be talking to his wife. Why the hell can enemies of the state call his wife? He is a freakin' killer.

Double bonus outrage. The prison authorities will punish Amir by canceling his wife's periodic overnight visits. Who the hell would let this scumbag breed?

Link here.

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli television Channels 2 and 10 canceled their planned broadcasts of a full-length interview with Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin on Friday, bowing to harsh public criticism a day after they showed promotional excerpts from the conversations.

The departing prime minister, Ehud Olmert, commended the stations for stopping the programs. “The broadcast of the interviews would have offended many people, especially on the eve of the annual memorial day for Yitzhak Rabin,” prime minister from 1992 to 1995, Mr. Olmert said in a statement. “I regret the outsized and uncalled-for interest in the slayer rather than the slain, Yitzhak Rabin, his memory and his legacy.”

Israelis will commemorate the 13th anniversary of Mr. Rabin’s assassination next week.

The assassin, Yigal Amir, a religious extremist, said in his first interviews since the 1995 killing that he shot Mr. Rabin over his land-for-peace deal with the Palestinians.

Mr. Amir told Israel’s Channel 10 TV that he was incited into action by comments from hawkish former generals, including Ariel Sharon, Rehavam Zeevi and Rafael Eitan, that the deal would bring disaster. At the time of the killing, all three were leading right-wing politicians with long, distinguished military careers.

Mr. Sharon went on to become prime minister from 2001 to 2006. In 2005 he ended Israel’s 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip before he had a debilitating stroke. Mr. Zeevi was assassinated by a Palestinian militant in 2001, and Mr. Eitan was killed when he was washed into a stormy Mediterranean in 2004.

After Mr. Rabin’s assassination, many in Israel blamed hard-line politicians and hawkish rabbis, saying they had created a divisive political climate that encouraged the killer. But Mr. Amir said he paid little attention to the rabbis.

“You don’t need a rabbi for that,” he said. “It’s not a matter of a rabbi.”

Mr. Amir, who is serving a life sentence, also said he realized that killing Mr. Rabin would be relatively simple when he attended the wedding of a friend who was marrying a prominent rabbi’s daughter. Mr. Amir was armed with a pistol, and Mr. Rabin was also there, protected by only one bodyguard.

“I saw that it was that simple. If I could shake his hand, I could have easily shot him,” Mr. Amir said.

He gave telephone interviews to Channel 10 and Channel 2 under the guise of having conversations with his wife in his cell.

As punishment for giving interviews without permission, the Prisons Authority moved Mr. Amir to solitary confinement in a different prison. He has been forbidden to use the telephone, receive visitors or hold conjugal visits with his wife, a statement said.

While in prison, Mr. Amir married an admirer, Larissa Trimbobler, and the two had a son last year.

Trimbobler? Indeed!

Should send Mumia to interview him.

As a serious, non-recreational question, would a Muslim Israeli get the same cushy deal in jail as this fool did?

Arent all convicted killers allowed to make at least some phone calls now and then in Israel? Why would Amir be treated differently?
And since he has had two kids while bbeing in jail, it seems phonecalls isnt his only privilegue... But most civilised countries allow their prissoners at least some liberties now and then..

But sometimes it gets a bit absurde..
In Sweden for example we let a collonel who had been convicted of spying for the Soviet Union go on leave to see his wife in her house. The procecutor determined that the police would only be allowed to watch his front door. Anything more than that would be violateing hes human rights. Well, the collonel, whho was a smart guy, and his wifte just took the back door, drove down to the harbour and took the first ferry over the baltic to the Soviet Union (Well, the guy came mome again after some 15yrs when the then Russian Republic refused to pay for him any longer).

Muslim non-Israelis do.

Death penalty would have avoided all this.

Fanatic Arab terrorist murderers of Israelis also get a fairly cushy deal in Israeli prisons. At least until they get released.

Edited to specify "Arab" terrorist murders of Israelis since Yigal Amir was a fanatic terrorist murderer of an Israeli himself.

Well, Israel doesnt execute people, and thats (according to me) what really makes her an outstanding example of democracy and human rights in this God forsaken part of the world No matter the offence, the state wont commit a graver one just to get even. And who said life behind bars is in any way softer than execution? Maybe its just me, but I hate the idea of giving the government the legal right to end a persons life. And I would expepect our Republicans here who allways rant about how the state interfere with, and some how limit, their personal freedoms, to agree with me.

Go Orthodox.... settle that nonsense in the proper manner.

This Republican does not think that people have freedom to commit heinous crimes.

Cop: So what do you think of Rabin's murder?
Citizen: Why... well... I think the same as you do, of course!
Cop: If that's so, I'm afraid I'd have to arrest you...

And this is another.

Just think of capital punsihment as the very, very late-term abortion of an obviously defective fetus.

If that's the case then why aren't large numbers of death row inmates in the US dropping their appeals, despite the fact that they're generally kept in much harsher conditions that most prisoners? Even a murderer serving a life sentence in maximum security gets to experience the simple joy of being alive, something that he deprived his victim(s) of.

I know that non-Israeli Jews who flee there from the US to avoid murder charges can certainly get cushy deals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Sheinbein

"After accepting a plea bargain with prosecutors, Sheinbein was sentenced to 24 years in jail with eligibility for parole in 2013 when he is 33."

Not bad for a crime that would've probably gotten him life w/o parole if he'd been prosecuted back in Maryland

Is that like people walking free in US despite blowing up airliners?
Luis Posada Carriles

Verbiage to avoid the camps Richard?

BD has already beat this to death.