Deadly Punishment For Land Sales

RAMALLAH, West Bank: With the peace process virtually frozen, Palestinian leaders are turning to increasingly violent measures. Palestinian Justice Minister Freih Abu Medein announced that the death penalty established last month for Palestinians who sell land to Jews would also be applied to Arabs with Israeli citizenship. "The Palestinian justice system will apply to them, no matter where they are," said Medein, "and they will be bought to justice in one way or another." TIME's Jamil Hamad reports that the new edict may be behind the recent unsolved murders of two Palestinian land dealers. Hamad says the new Palestinian call for the death penalty would have been unthinkable if the peace accords were moving forward. But with no hope for progress in sight, it's just another manifestation of Palestinian anger and frustration at the Netanyahu government's decision to go ahead with the construction of new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem.