In the current reality, belonging to an organization does not depend on external bureaucracy but on the operational identity of the accused, and the certainty of the prohibition does not stem from the presence of a hearer, but rather from the individual's conscious decision to apply the authority of the organization to himself and to be included in its ranks, an act that establishes the foundations of the offense in a clear and predictable manner.
The aforesaid is also true in relation to another argument of the defense, regarding the fear of "criminalization of thought and the danger of the slippery slope." In addition, I am of the opinion that this argument is detached from the facts and actions of the defendant, which were detailed in detail above.
The oath itself is not a mere "thought," it is an act of association. In the Counter-Terrorism Law, the legislature has determined that "consent to join" (section 2(2)) is also an offense, and the self-oath is the modern and digital version of that consent. Anyone who chooses to "digitize loyalty" and abide by the organization's codes creates the criminal significance of his actions with his own hands.
The principle of legality is intended to prevent the normative citizen from being surprised, it is not intended to allow those who decide to become members of a terrorist organization to evade responsibility on the grounds that "the ceremony was not formal enough." From the moment the defendant swore allegiance, adopted the language of the organization and its combat doctrine, he defined himself as a member. The law, in the box "Belongs to the Community," simply gives legal validity to the clear self-definition of the defendant who himself testified to his interrogators about his affiliation with the organization. This is a substantive, functional and distinct friendship, and not the stigmatization of a "friend" without an explicit and clear law, as the defense claims.
The significance of the interpretation that the defense seeks to pour into section 2(a) – the determination that a "member" is only a person who has taken his oath before the organization's representative, will turn the Counter-Terrorism Law into a dead letter in the digital age and abandon public safety to the "lone wolves" model.