It was celebrated with ghoulish delight.  On March 30, the Israeli Knesset passed the Penal Bill (Amendment – Death Penalty for Terrorists), an instrument expanding the use of the death penalty for offences of a terrorist nature.  The death penalty had previously existed in Israeli law for war crimes but was abolished in 1954 for ordinary crimes in peacetime.  Technically, it remained on the books for crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity and certain cases of martial law.  

The law’s purpose is articulated as establishing the death sentence “for the sake of the struggle against terrorism”  for those who have carried out lethal attacks for the protection of the Israeli state, citizens and residents, for reasons of enhancing “deterrence”, preventing attacks involving the taking of hostages, for sheer retribution, and for prescribing “arrangements for the execution of this penalty.”

Its purpose is also tellingly and odiously discriminatory, imposing the death penalty for the deliberate killing of a person with the intention of “negating the existence of the State of Israel.” Hanging is mandated, access to legal counsel restricted, and visits from family members for the condemned heavily circumscribed. (The list of those permitted is authoritarian and bleak: prison officers, authorised religious officials, official visitors, those authorised by the Minister, attorneys and physicians.)  The bill also limits accountability by minimising external........

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