Tel Aviv – Israel’s parliament is set to vote on a bill that would make the death penalty the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis.
The parliament began debate on Monday, days before its spring recess. The bill’s passage would mark the culmination of a yearslong push by Israel’s far-right to escalate punishment for Palestinians convicted of nationalistic offenses against Israelis — and victory for Israel’s firebrand minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the religious party that introduced the legislation.
Opponents of the legislation call it racist, draconian and unlikely to deter attacks by Palestinian militants. The legislation calls for the death penalty to go into effect within 30 days, though rights groups are expected to petition Israel’s Supreme Court against it.
In the lead-up to the vote, Ben Gvir has popularized the measure with a small noose pinned to his lapel — an overt reference to the bill’s execution method of choice.
“With God’s help, we will fully implement this law and kill our enemies,” he said after the bill received approval to be brought to a final vote, adding it was “the most important law” to be approved by parliament in recent years.
Ben Gvir’s party is crucial to the coalition helmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Critics include Israelis and Palestinians, international rights groups and the United Nations. They say that it establishes a hierarchy between Israeli court systems in a way that will confine the death penalty to Palestinians convicted of murdering Jewish citizens of Israel.
The bill instructs military courts to mete out the sentence to those convicted of murdering an Israeli “as an act of terror.” Such courts try only West Bank Palestinians, who are not Israeli citizens. The bill says military courts can change the penalty to life imprisonment in “special circumstances.”
Israeli courts, which try Israeli citizens, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, can choose between life imprisonment or the death penalty in cases of murder aiming to harm Israeli citizens and residents or “with the intent of rejecting the existence of the state of Israel.”
Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Democratic Values and Institutions, said this distinction is discriminatory.
“It will apply in territories with military courts, which are Palestinian courts. It will apply in Israeli courts, but only to terrorist activities that are motivated by the wish to undermine the existence of Israel. That means Jews will not be indicted under this law,” he said.
