JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
The parliament began debate on Monday, days before its spring recess. The bill\u2019s passage would mark the culmination of a yearslong push by Israel\u2019s far-right to escalate punishment for Palestinians convicted of nationalistic offenses against Israelis \u2014 and victory for Israel\u2019s firebrand minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the religious party that introduced the legislation. <\/p>\n
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\u2019s Supreme Court against it.<\/p>\n
In the lead-up to the vote, Ben Gvir has popularized the measure with a small noose pinned to his lapel \u2014 an overt reference to the bill\u2019s execution method of choice. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith God\u2019s help, we will fully implement this law and kill our enemies,\u201d he said after the bill received approval to be brought to a final vote, adding it was \u201cthe most important law\u201d to be approved by parliament in recent years.<\/p>\n
Ben Gvir\u2019s party is crucial to the coalition helmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. <\/p>\n
What\u2019s in the bill?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The bill instructs military courts to mete out the sentence to those convicted of murdering an Israeli \u201cas an act of terror.\u201d 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 \u201cspecial circumstances.\u201d <\/p>\n
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 \u201cwith the intent of rejecting the existence of the state of Israel.\u201d <\/p>\n
Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute\u2019s Center for Democratic Values and Institutions, said this distinction is discriminatory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Critiques of the bill<\/p>\n
Cohen added that under international law, Israel\u2019s parliament should not be legislating in the West Bank, which is not sovereign Israeli territory. Many in Netanyahu\u2019s far-right coalition seek to annex the West Bank to Israel.<\/p>\n
The lawyer for the parliament\u2019s National Security Committee raised several concerns during earlier deliberations, noting that it does not allow clemency, contradicting international conventions. The bill says executions should be carried out within 90 days of sentencing.<\/p>\n
Though Israel technically has the death penalty on the books as a possible punishment for acts of genocide, espionage during wartime and certain terror offenses, the country hasn\u2019t put anyone to death since Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962. <\/p>\n
The bill will not apply retroactively to any of the militants Israel currently holds who attacked the country on Oct. 7, 2023. There is a separate bill under consideration dealing with punishment for the attackers.<\/p>\n
Some opposition lawmakers worry that the bill could harm future hostage negotiations. Israel exchanged some 250 hostages taken during the October 2023 attack for thousands of Palestinian prisoners. <\/p>\n
The Public Committee against Torture in Israel, a local advocacy group, says the state has consistently voted in favor of abolishing the death penalty at the U.N. Israel\u2019s Shin Bet\u2019s security agency had — until recently \u2014 objected to the practice, believing it could spur further revenge plots by Palestinian militants. <\/p>\n
Frankel writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israel\u2019s parliament is set to vote on a bill that would make the death penalty the default punishment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[9103,18259,395,17850,18261,37,18262,18264,18235,2421,1915,18263,1686,2253,18260],"class_list":{"0":"post-43279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-ben-gvir","9":"tag-bill","10":"tag-day","11":"tag-death-penalty","12":"tag-default-punishment","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-israeli-citizen","15":"tag-israeli-court-system","16":"tag-israeli-parliament","17":"tag-israelis","18":"tag-legislation","19":"tag-military-court","20":"tag-national-security","21":"tag-palestinians","22":"tag-west-bank-palestinians"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116319203014206404","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}