As countries around the world have moved to abandon the death penalty as cruel, ineffective, and costly, Israel’s elected right-wing government took a step in the opposite direction on Wednesday, advancing a bill to impose the death penalty – but only on people of Palestinian ethnicity.
73% of countries worldwide have wholly or in practice abolished the death penalty, and no country has a death penalty law that applies only to people of one ethnicity.
But in Israel on Wednesday, the right-wing Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Homeland) party-sponsored bill passed the Knesset with a vote of 55-9.
The bill would allow Israeli judges to sentence Palestinians to death – but would not apply to Jewish Israelis who kill Palestinians.
Since the beginning of 2023, Israeli soldiers and paramilitary colonizers have killed 65 Palestinians. During the same time period, Palestinians killed 12 Israelis.
The right-wing Israeli government that is currently in power is, according to the Times of Israel, “the most right-wing in Israeli history”, and while the hard right has long pushed for the judicial execution of Palestinians, they faced opposition in the past from both the security establishment, which argues that it does not act as a deterrent and the legal establishment, which argues that it could bring Israel under scrutiny in international human rights law.
Israel’s religious leadership also opposes the death penalty, with Israeli Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef arguing against the death penalty in all circumstances.
Knesset Member Limor Son Har Melech, a member of the hard-right Otzma Yehudit party, stated before Wednesday’s vote that she believed that imposing a death penalty on people with Palestinian ethnicity is “ethical, just, and necessary”.
The Palestinian Authority Civil Affairs Minister, Hussein al-Sheikh, stated that the vote was “a continuation of a racist approach” carried out by the Israeli government. He added, “The one who should be tried for his crimes is the occupation, not a people suffering under the oppression of the occupiers.”
Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara pointed out that the only Western country that still uses death sentences is the US, and even there, only 31 out of 50 states still have it.
Regardless of the law being considered in the Israeli Knesset, Israeli authorities do already carry out frequent executions of so-called ‘wanted’ Palestinians. These are extra-judicial assassinations carried out by missile or shooting, and without any trial or sentencing – in direct contravention of international law.
