MK says ex-Foreign Ministry head guilty of ‘treason’

Freshman Jewish Home MK Yinon Magal on Tuesday called for former Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel to be investigated for treason.

Magal sent a letter to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein in which he claimed Liel had committed a crime when he attempted to work with foreign governments toward recognition of a Palestinian state.

In some cases, Magal said, Liel referred to East Jerusalem as the proposed country’s capital.

That, Magal claimed, was in contravention of article 97 section b of Israel’s criminal code.

The law states that anyone who acts “with the intention of removing territory from the sovereignty of the state or adding it to the sovereignty of another” will be punished with “death or life in prison.”

The death penalty has only been used once in Israel, on Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi SS lieutenant colonel who was found guilty of crimes against humanity.

Israeli constitutional law expert Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer said “no sane Israeli attorney-general” would prosecute such a case, since the original intention of the law plainly did not apply to such circumstances. The first requirement in understanding the law, he told Army Radio, is “common sense.”

Liel has been a divisive figure for years. The former Foreign Ministry official, who had served as director-general from November 2000 until April 2001, has referred to Israel’s rule in the West Bank as a case of apartheid.

“As soon as you have in the same territory two separate legal systems for Israelis and Palestinians, you have apartheid,” Liel — who served as Israel’s ambassador to South Africa during the transition from apartheid to democracy — said in December 2014.

“It’s clear that the situation is not comparable 1:1, but we’re getting very close,” added Liel.

The attorney general has yet to respond to Magal’s letter.