As the defense argues, at the basis of the principle of legality is the requirement that the criminal prohibition be clear, explicit and known in advance, and from this the question arises whether a reasonable person can understand that the act is prohibited.
When a person swears allegiance to a murderous terrorist organization, adopts its slang and terminology, and consumes his combat manuals, he cannot claim "I didn't know it was forbidden." The combination of determination (expression) with the preliminary actions and those that follow makes the prohibition clear. The defendant is not an "innocent reader" of the law, he is a person who made a decision after a long process of assimilation in the form of obsessive to addictive consumption of various forms of deception in its murderous hues – to put himself at the disposal of a murderous system, and therefore, I do not see how the principle of legality should serve as a cover for "quiet" joining a terrorist organization.
Counsel for the defendant is right, the law does not punish thoughts or hallucinations, but the principle of legality does not require that the legislature specify any type of ceremony or oath, but rather that it define the essence, and the essence is belonging – "a member of the people."
Membership in a terrorist organization is a "status offense" based on belonging, so the combination of acts in the form of obsessive consumption and possession of ways of fighting in terms of operational training, the adoption of the IS snage and terminology, and the oath of allegiance to a different leader of Da'ar'ar (Bi'a) – turns the thought into a functional identity.
When a person intensifies his views after October 7 and holds instructional files on how to prepare poisons and explosives and explosives – this is not a "thing of the heart" or a "hallucination", it is an operational statement of intent in the form of building operational capability, this is the essential "Form 101".
The Haganah's interpretation is like creating a "loophole that calls for terrorism," so that anyone who joins an inspiring organization such as Da'arar is different – will be granted absolute immunity as long as he does not physically meet with a representative, thus thwarting the law's preventive purpose.