The Knesset voted 62-48 on Monday to pass a bill in its second and third readings imposing the death penalty on terrorists convicted of killing Israelis.
“We have made history. From now on, every mother in Judea and Samaria will know that if her son goes out to murder, his sentence is the gallows,” stated Itamar Ben Gvir, the Israeli national security minister who supported the legislation, in Hebrew.
“I say to the people of the European Union, who have applied pressure and threatened the State of Israel, ‘We are not afraid. We will not submit,’” he stated. “We are in our country with our sovereignty and will protect our citizens. And a terrorist, who goes out to kill, let him know that he will go to the gallows.”
Limor Son Har-Melech, a member of the Knesset from Otzma Yehudit who sponsored the bill, stated in Hebrew that that the passage of the “historic law” means that there will be “no more cycle of murder, imprisonment and release in deals, but a clear determination. Whoever chooses to murder Jews because they are Jews forfeits their right to live.”
“This is a message of justice, deterrence and national responsibility,” she stated. “This is also true Jewish morality. One that does not settle for momentary salvation but obligates ensuring that evil will not return to strike.”
The Knesset member, who was badly hurt and whose husband was murdered in a Palestinian terror attack in 2003, stated that the passage of the bill was a “personal and special moment, precisely from my place as a woman who paid the price of terror, as one who lost what was most precious to her of all, my husband Shuli, may God avenge his blood.”
“I took it upon myself to do everything to prevent the next murder, and today we took an important step in that direction,” she stated. “This is a day when the State of Israel chose life.”
“Jewish blood is not forfeit,” she added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voted for the bill in person.
The Knesset stated in Hebrew that the Death Penalty for Terrorists Bill mandates that a “resident of the area, except for an Israeli citizen or Israel resident, who intentionally caused the death of a person in an act of terrorism, shall be imposed with the death penalty, unless the military court finds that special circumstances exist under which it is appropriate to impose a sentence of life imprisonment.”
“Additionally, the authority of a military court to impose this sentence shall not be conditioned on a request by the prosecution, on a unanimous decision of the panel, or on the rank of the judges not being lower than lieutenant colonel,” it added. “Furthermore, the commander of IDF forces in the area shall not have the authority to pardon, mitigate or commute a death sentence imposed for this offense.”
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which criticizes the Jewish state frequently, stated that “Israel must immediately repeal the discriminatory death penalty law passed today by the Knesset, as it contravenes Israel’s obligations under international law.”
“The United Nations opposes the death penalty under all circumstances. The implementation of this new law would violate international law’s prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment,” it said. “Additionally, this law further entrenches Israel’s violation of the prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid as it will exclusively apply to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Israel, who are often convicted after unfair trials.”
The foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom also decried the bill.
