- by Peter Farmer
- The Guardian
- Issue #2180
They celebrated with sweets. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s National Security Minister, handed out sweets to commemorate the first reading of a bill for a death penalty for ‘terrorists’ in the Israeli Parliament.
Ben-Gvir is in a party called ‘Jewish Power’ which brought the legislation to a vote. The law would mean the death penalty for people deemed to be terrorists who act against the state of Israel. In practice, that would mean executing Palestinians found guilty of causing the loss of life while attacking Israelis. It’s unlikely to be used on Israelis killing Palestinians on the illegally occupied West Bank, because there’s a clause about harming Israel.
The law would be a significant step for Israel. While the country has the death penalty for some crimes, it has only been applied twice since 1948. The most recent use of the death penalty was in 1962 when Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichman was hanged.
Ben-Gvir is so extreme in his support for illegal and violent Israeli settlements that he’s barred from travel to Australia. He lives in an illegal settlement.
The new law has been called “a new form of escalating Israeli extremism and criminality” by the Palestinian Authority. Human rights organisations in Palestine have warned that the law could be applied retroactively and could be used to execute collective death sentences on hundreds of Palestinian detainees.
Ben-Gvir voted against the Gaza ceasfire deal which saw Israeli hostages returned in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The bill passed in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, by 39 votes to 16. It has to pass two more readings to become law.
