Israel moves toward state-sanctioned execution

The first reading of a new amendment to Israel’s Penal Law — a change that would mandate the death penalty for anyone convicted of killing an Israeli “intentionally or recklessly” when driven by “racism or hostility toward the public” or seeking to harm “the rebirth of the Jewish people” — marks one of the darkest legal escalations in the history of the occupying power. It is not a simple expansion of punitive authority, it is a weaponized legal instrument designed with precision to target Palestinians, fortify apartheid structures and normalize execution under the veneer of legislation.

The draft law has been crafted to ensure that Palestinians — and only Palestinians — fall into its crosshairs, even for actions committed before it passes. No settler who kills a Palestinian, no soldier who opens fire on civilians, no extremist who invokes nationalist theology as justification for murder will ever face this punishment. The law is selective by design.

Its backers insist the bill is neutral. But neutrality collapses the moment one recalls the structural imbalance between colonizer and colonized. Palestinians are prosecuted in military courts that lack even the most basic guarantees of fairness, with conviction rates exceeding 99 percent. Authorizing these same military courts to impose noncommutable death sentences on civilians is not a step toward justice — it is the codification of execution without due process.

This bill is not an isolated measure. It must be viewed against the backdrop of years of total impunity for unlawful killings carried out by the occupying forces and by settlers operating under their protection. Since October 2023 alone, extrajudicial executions, deaths in custody and state-backed settler assaults have exploded in number. Instead of accountability, these acts are met with political encouragement, societal applause and official glorification. Violence against Palestinians has become an accepted extension of the occupation’s ideology.

This is the logical next step for a system that already grants itself permission to kill Palestinians without consequence

Hani Hazaimeh

Given this context, the move toward a mandatory death penalty is not a deviation. It is the logical next step for a system that already grants itself permission to kill Palestinians without consequence.

What makes the bill especially dangerous is its retroactive application — a blatant violation of international law and a hallmark of authoritarian regimes that weaponize the judiciary to settle political scores. Its mandatory nature deepens the brutality. Judges will have no discretion. Context will be irrelevant. The widespread use of torture-tainted confessions, forced interrogations and flawed investigations — all routine in cases involving Palestinians — will not matter. The state’s demand is simple: deliver death sentences.

This is not the rule of law. It is the rule of domination.

For decades, the occupation claimed to impose strict limits on the death penalty, reserving it for the most extreme crimes. The last execution was carried out in 1962. Israel even ratified an international treaty in 1991 committing to eventual abolition. Today, it is changing course entirely.

The timing is revealing. A government steeped in extremist ideology — already facing global accusations of genocide in Gaza — now seeks to formalize lethal punishment against the population it besieges, displaces and represses. This is not about security. It is about sustaining demographic supremacy through institutionalized violence.

The clause about the “rebirth of the Jewish people” exposes the ideological core of this legislation. It is not a legal standard; it is a national-religious slogan inserted into statutory language. It elevates an ethno-nationalist project above universal human rights, turning Palestinian existence into a conditional and expendable variable.

This is not about security. It is about sustaining demographic supremacy through institutionalized violence

Hani Hazaimeh

This proposed law is part of a long chain of dehumanizing policies. It is designed to intimidate an entire people through the threat of state execution imposed by courts that have never afforded them justice.

Israeli lawmakers understand precisely what they are doing. They are not responding to a legal gap or a security need. They are fortifying the machinery of apartheid.

But this shift did not take place in a vacuum. It emerged from a political landscape where Palestinian deaths — whether caused by bombardment, sniper bullets, torture or settler mobs — are met with impunity or celebration. Ministers routinely incite violence, calling Palestinians “human animals,” urging their expulsion or encouraging settler vigilantism. In such a climate, a mandatory death penalty becomes an instrument of terror rather than deterrence.

It sends a message to soldiers: kill instead of arrest. To judges: rubber-stamp execution. To settlers: you are untouchable. And to Palestinian society: your lives are negotiable.

This is why the international community cannot shrug this off as an “internal legislative process.” It is a test of the world’s commitment to human rights. If the global response is limited to statements of concern, the occupation will interpret it as a green light to escalate further.

The world is moving in the opposite direction. A total of 113 countries have abolished the death penalty. Instead of joining humanity’s moral trajectory, Israel is sprinting backward.

This bill is not merely legislation. It is a declaration of intent: the intent to cement the machinery of apartheid, to weaponize the courts and to turn execution into a pillar of governance over a colonized people.

• Hani Hazaimeh is a senior editor based in Amman. X: @hanihazaimeh