Global outrage continues to mount against a new law passed by Israel’s parliament Monday, which would make death by hanging the default punishment for Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks. The law is written so that it cannot apply to Israelis convicted of the same crimes. |
The measure passed with 62 of the Knesset’s 120 members voting in favor, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was championed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the far-right Jewish Power party, who has a history of violence and incitement against Palestinians. Ben-Gvir and his supporters wore gold lapel pins shaped like nooses on the floor of the legislature to show their support for the bill. |
“Soon, we will count them one by one,” Ben-Gvir said of the executions to come, while celebrating with champagne. |
Israel abolished the death penalty for murder convictions in 1954 but retained it for exceptionally severe offenses like treason and crimes against humanity. The country has executed only two people in its history, the last of which was the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962. |
The U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, said that if the new law were implemented, it would constitute “an additional, particularly egregious violation of international law” and that its application to residents of the occupied Palestinian territories “would constitute a war crime.” |
Condemnations also rolled in from Israeli opposition figures and legal scholars, as well as foreign governments. “This is a clear step backwards—the introduction of the death penalty, together with the discriminatory nature of the law,” EU spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said in Brussels. Even Germany, long a stronghold of support for Israel, said it viewed the law “with great concern.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was more blunt, calling it “a step closer to apartheid.” |
A step closer, or a step further? As Palestinian physician and activist Mustafa Barghouti noted in an interview with CNN, “Even the apartheid regime in South Africa did not dare to say that if a black man kills a white man, he will be executed. But if a white man kills a black man, he will not be. What Israel did … it is exactly that, saying that a Palestinian could be sentenced to death penalty, but an Israeli no for the same crime.” |
Ultimately, there is a good chance that the law will be overturned by Israel’s Supreme Court. Yet arguably, the damage has already been done. By not only passing but celebrating such a disgraceful law, the current far-right government of Israel has reaffirmed its commitment to a discriminatory agenda of structural violence against Palestinians. |
At some point in the future, the bill will come due. The European Commission already proposed suspending certain trade concessions with Israel last year over its brutal conduct in Gaza, and the death penalty bill is likely to renew calls for those sanctions to be approved. With the EU making up one-third of Isreal’s total trade in goods in 2024, that would be a damaging blow to the country’s economy. It is thus difficult to avoid the conclusion that the law is not only immoral, but self-defeating as well. |