The news about the decision by the Knesset to pass legislation mandating the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorism by military tribunals in the West Bank upset me more than I expected. My first reaction was purely visceral: the law immediately felt so wrong that it was as if something very dear to me had suddenly become mortally ill. Images of Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrating its passage with champagne only amplified that feeling. It took a few days for those emotions to give way to a more reflective frame of mind. Any analysis born of such strong emotions is inevitably biased. Yet I hope I was able to translate the initial revolt into arguments that are rational and defensible.

The first thing I realized was that despite my initial fixation on Ben-Gvir, my reaction was not simply a political disagreement with the current government, even though I do not agree with many of its internal policies. Normally I avoid commenting on such matters, since as a non-citizen of Israel, it is usually not my business. This case, however, touched something deeper: my understanding of the moral foundations on which the Jewish state was meant to stand, and the realization of the potentially destructive effect this law could have on its future, and on the future of world Jewry. For that reason I felt I could not remain silent. Not because my voice can change anything, but because it was important for me, as a Zionist Jew, to raise it.

Let me begin by stating that I understand the emotional climate in which this law was passed, or at least I believe that I understand it, from conversations with my family, who lives in Israel, and from experiencing firsthand the losses of October 7 – some of the victims are people whom I personally knew. It is hard to deny that the October 7 attack was a deeply traumatic event that left Israeli society shaken and wounded. The subsequent war against Hamas, with its inconclusive results, and the rise of anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric around the world did little to heal this wound.

I can understand this law as an attempt at healing, in the hope that it might deter future attacks. At the same time, to me it indicates that Israel is giving in to a very natural but ultimately unhealthy impulse to exact vengeance. It may even reflect a deeply felt and rarely acknowledged sense of shame for having allowed October 7 to happen. But vengeance, shame,  emotions more generally, are poor guides for policymaking. Jews are supposed to be wise, and this law is not an act of wisdom.

The flaws of this law lie on several intersecting planes. I am not a jurist, but one does not have to be one to see the purely legal problems embedded in it and the rather clumsy attempts to explain them away. The most obvious problem is the asymmetry built into the legislation. It applies to Palestinians tried in military courts in the West Bank while excluding Jews who commit terrorist acts against Palestinians. This is formally explained by pointing to the existence of different systems of jurisdiction operating in the territories: Jews are subject to Israeli criminal and civil law, while Palestinians are subject to military tribunals.

Yet this explanation merely describes the........

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