Israel passes death penalty law for Palestinians convicted of lethal attacks

By Maayan Lubell and Pesha Magid

JERUSALEM, March 30 (Reuters) – Israel’s parliament passed a law on Monday making death by hanging a default sentence for Palestinians convicted in military courts of deadly attacks, fulfilling a pledge by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right allies.

The law would only apply to Israelis convicted of murder whose attacks aimed at “ending Israel’s existence”, meaning it would mete out the death penalty for Palestinians but not for Jewish Israelis who committed similar crimes, critics say. 

The legislation has drawn international criticism of Israel, which is already under scrutiny for increasing violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and its war in Gaza.

NO RIGHT TO CLEMENCY

The measure includes provisions requiring an execution by hanging within 90 days of sentencing, with some allowance for a delay but no right to clemency. It provides the option of imposing a life imprisonment sentence instead of capital punishment, but only in unspecified “special circumstances”.

Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954. The only person executed in Israel after a civilian trial was Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi Holocaust, in 1962. 

Military courts in the West Bank can already sentence Palestinian convicts to death but have not done so. 

The measure was promoted by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister who wore noose-shaped lapel pins in the run-up to the vote. 

“This is a day of justice for the murdered, a day of deterrence for enemies,” Ben-Gvir said in parliament. “Whoever chooses terror chooses death.” 

PALESTINIANS REJECT LAW, SOME CALL FOR ATTACKS

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the legislation as a breach of international law and a doomed bid meant to intimidate Palestinians. 

“Such laws and measures will not break the will of the Palestinian people or undermine their steadfastness,” Abbas’ office said in a statement. 

“Nor will they deter them from continuing their legitimate struggle for freedom, independence, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.” 

Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad called on Palestinians to launch attacks in revenge for the law. 

CRITICS SAY BILL IS DISCRIMINATORY

Israel’s leading rights groups decried the law as “an act of institutionalized discrimination and racist violence against Palestinians.” The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said it filed an appeal against the law with Israel’s Supreme Court.

The law is the latest action by Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious coalition to raise concern among Israel’s Western allies, who have also been critical of settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. 

In an effort to head off international backlash, Netanyahu asked for some elements of the legislation to be softened, Israeli media reported. He voted in favour of the bill, which won the backing of 62 of the Knesset’s 120 members.

The original bill had mandated the death sentence for non-Israeli citizens convicted in West Bank military courts of deadly terrorist acts. The revised legislation includes the option of life imprisonment. 

In Israel’s civilian courts, the new legislation mandates either life imprisonment or the death penalty for anyone convicted of “deliberately causing the death of a person with the intent of ending Israel’s existence.” 

Critics of the bill say that language effectively confines those Israelis who can be sentenced to death to members of the country’s 20% Arab minority, many of whom identify as Palestinian, and not to Jewish citizens. 

Even before the vote, the bill drew criticism from the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Britain, who said it had a “de facto discriminatory” character toward Palestinians and undermines Israel’s democratic principles. 

A group of U.N. experts said the bill includes vague definitions of “terrorist”, meaning the death penalty could be meted out over “conduct that is not genuinely terrorist”. 

Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party argues that the death penalty will deter Palestinians from carrying out deadly attacks against Israelis or attempting kidnappings with the aim of affecting swap deals for Palestinians jailed in Israeli prisons.  

Amnesty International, which tracks countries imposing death penalty laws, says there “is no evidence that the death penalty is any more effective in reducing crime than life imprisonment”.

Professionals in Israel’s legal establishment argued the bill was unconstitutional, increasing the likelihood of the Supreme Court striking down the law. 

GLOBAL TREND ON DEATH PENALTY IS TOWARD ABOLITION

Some 54 countries around the world permit the death penalty, including a handful of democracies such as the United States and Japan, according to Amnesty International. The group says the global trend is toward abolition, with 113 countries having outlawed it. 

Israeli rights group B’Tselem says military courts in the West Bank, where Palestinians are tried for alleged crimes, have a 96% conviction rate and a history of extracting confessions through torture. 

Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in 2007 of racist incitement against Arabs and support for the Kach group on the Israeli and U.S. terrorism blacklists, has overseen an overhaul of prisons that has led to allegations of abuse of Palestinian prisoners. 

He made capital punishment for Palestinian militants a main pledge in his 2022 election campaign and since taking office has publicly backed some Israeli soldiers being probed for suspected excessive force against Palestinians. 

The next national election is due in October 2026.

(Reporting by Pesha Magid and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; editing by Rami Ayyub, William Maclean and Stephen Coates)