The Israeli parliament passed a law on March 30 mandating the death penalty for West Bank Palestinians convicted of carrying out deadly attacks against Israelis, JTA reported.
The law, which was approved by the Knesset in a vote of 62-48 following nearly 12 hours of debate, marked a victory for Israel’s far-right following a years-long push to increase penalties for Palestinians convicted of lethal attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voted for the measure.
“This is a day of justice for the victims and a day of deterrence for our enemies. No more revolving door for terrorists, but a clear decision. Whoever chooses terrorism chooses death,” far-right Israeli security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has long lobbied for the measure, said in a statement.
The legislation has drawn widespread opposition from critics in Israel and beyond, including Israeli justice officials, progressive Jewish groups and the foreign ministers of Australia, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Critics of the law say it effectively mandates the execution of Palestinian attackers while intentionally excluding Jewish extremists.
“In the highly volatile political climate that now imperils the rule of law in Israel, this issue further normalizes the invocation of state violence,” Michael Zoosman, the co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty, wrote in a Times of Israel op-ed in January. “It widens the gap between modern-day Israel and the central Jewish value of the inviolability of life.”
Minutes after the legislation’s passage, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel announced that it had filed a petition to Israel’s highest court asking it to strike down the legislation, calling it “discriminatory by design.” The current right-wing government has sought to weaken the court’s authority.
The law does not actually spell out that it is meant for Palestinians only. But it mandates death by hanging as the default punishment for non-Israelis convicted in military court of deadly nationalistic killings. Only West Bank Palestinians are tried in military courts.
The law includes provisions that judges can opt for life imprisonment under unspecified “special circumstances,” but the death penalty would otherwise be mandatory.
While the law includes a separate provision that allows courts to impose the death sentence on Israeli citizens, who are tried in civilian courts, it stipulates that it is only intended for those who seek to “negate the existence of the State of Israel,” which experts say would likely exclude Jewish Israelis.
