JERUSALEM, March 30 (Reuters) – Israel’s parliament was set to vote on Monday on a law making the death penalty a default sentence for Palestinians convicted in military court of deadly attacks, seeing through a main pledge by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right allies.
The legislation has drawn international criticism against Israel, which is already under scrutiny for increasing violence by settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
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 and the option of imposing a life imprisonment sentence instead of capital punishment.
It was devised by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister who has worn noose-shaped lapel pins in the run-up to the vote.
CRITICS SAY BILL IS DISCRIMINATORY
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 Jewish 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.
The original bill had mandated the death sentence for non-Israeli citizens in the West Bank 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.”
Even before the vote, the bill has drawn criticism from the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Britain, who said it had a “de facto discriminatory” character toward Palestinians.
“The adoption of this bill would risk undermining Israel’s commitments with regards to democratic principles,” the ministers said in a joint statement on Sunday.
A group of United Nations experts said that the bill includes “vague and overbroad definitions of terrorist”, meaning the death penalty could be meted out over “conduct that is not genuinely terrorist” in nature.
Ben-Gvir has argued that the death penalty would deter Palestinians from carrying out deadly attacks against Israelis or attempting kidnappings with the aim of forcing 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.”
The bill has also drawn objections from professionals in Israel’s security and legal establishments throughout its legislation who argued that it was unconstitutional and ineffective.
Israeli rights groups and opposition parliament members have said they will challenge the law at Israel’s Supreme Court, which is likely to strike it down.
GLOBAL TREND ON DEATH PENALTY IS TOWARD ABOLITION
Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954. The only person ever executed in Israel after a civilian trial was Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi Holocaust, in 1962.
Military courts retained the option of imposing a death sentence but have not done so so far.
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 that the global trend on the death penalty is toward abolition, with 113 countries having outlawed it for all crimes.
The Israeli rights group B’Tselem says that military courts in the West Bank, where Palestinians are tried for alleged crimes, have a 96% conviction rate and have 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 have 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 by October.
Abdallah Al Zughari, the head of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club, said that Palestinians in Israeli jails had already been subject to “slow killing practices” that have led to the deaths of more than 100 prisoners since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
(Reporting by Pesha Magid, Maayan Lubell and Ali Sawafta; editing by Rami Ayyub, William Maclean)
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