by Patrick Delaney at LifeSite News
A bill proposed by members of Israel’s majority coalition in the Knesset (parliament), which punishes anyone who shares their faith in Jesus Christ with significant prison time, will not be moving forward, according to one of its sponsors and, presumably, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As LifeSiteNews reported earlier this week, two members of Netanyahu’s tight majority coalition from the United Torah Judaism party (UTJ) are sponsors of legislation that penalizes anyone “who solicits a person, directly, digitally, by mail, or online in order to convert his religion” with “one-year imprisonment” and if the person is under 18 years of age “two years imprisonment.”
Though the legislation applies to anyone having a conversation about their faith with Israelis of a different religion, in their official explanation of the bill, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sponsors emphasized their motivation to target Christians in particular.
“Recently, the attempts of missionary groups, mainly Christians, to solicit conversion of religion have increased,” the UTJ legislators said. Such activities involve “many negative repercussions, including psychological damages, [which] warrant the intervention of the legislature.”
Jewish Evangelical Christian Joel Rosenberg wrote,…
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