Two more striking recent developments have highlighted the burgeoning groundswell of support against Israel’s death penalty bill currently before the Knesset. First, a report earlier this week revealed that approximately 1,200 prominent Israeli public figures have signed a statement opposing proposed legislation that would impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners, describing the bill as a “moral stain” that contradicts Israel’s character. The second event occurred earlier today at an online webinar highlighting efforts across the Jewish world to strike down this bill in the Knesset. These latest signs reflect the growing consensus that this legislation would pose a disaster for Israel and for Jews across the world.

1,200 Israeli figures denounce Palestinian death penalty bill as ‘moral stain.’

In the former development,1,200 Israeli figures signed and released a statement earlier this week denouncing the death penalty bill as a “moral stain.” (This statement was in addition to an online petition that thousands of Israelis signed against the bill.) Specifically, their statement warned that “renewing the use of the death penalty would cast a moral stain on Israel and contradict its identity as a Jewish state.” According to the Israeli news website Walla, the elite signatories include Nobel laureates, ex-Mossad and Shin Bet (security) chiefs, hundreds of academics, and ex-Supreme Court justices who oppose the legislation imposing capital punishment on Palestinians—while exempting Israeli citizens—calling it contrary to Israel’s identity as a Jewish state. Recognizable names include Nobel chemistry laureates Ada Yonath, Aharon Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, and Dan Shechtman; former Supreme Court justices Meni Mazuz, Yoram Danziger, Anat Baron, and George Kara; former Shin Bet chiefs Ami Ayalon and Carmi Gillon; ex-Mossad head Tamir Pardo; former army chiefs Dan Halutz and Moshe Ya’alon; and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Anti-Death Penalty Bill Webinar has Hundreds of Registrants and Attendees

The second sign this week of widening opposition to this legislation came in the form of an online webinar entitled “Understanding Israel’s Death Penalty for Arabs Only Bill: A Case Study.” The subtitle of this webinar was “A new bill in the Knesset would establish the death penalty for Palestinians who kill Israelis – but not the other way around.” Sponsors included Partners for Progressive Israel, New Jewish Narrative, New Israel Fund, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, J Street, Reconstructing Judaism, Smol Emuni USA, and L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty. Speakers at the event included Benzi Sykora, a frontline lobbyist and Policy Director at Zulat; Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the CEO of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights; and Shira Ben Sasson-Furstenberg, Director in Israel for the New Israel Fund and a veteran Israeli civil society leader. Hadar Susskind, CEO of New Jewish Narrative, served as moderator.  The webinar had 791 registrants and 295 attendees, which constituted an incredible success for the middle of the workday – a testament to the importance of this issue on the minds of Jews across the world.

Contextualizing These Events

This week’s developments would be significant enough in isolation. It happens, however,  that they also come not long after worldwide Jewish communities released a Jewish Communal Statement Opposing the Death Penalty Bill in Israel. That statement highlighted the immense scope of reputable Israeli and Jewish groups that are standing firmly against this legislation. That unambiguous statement itself built upon the documented massive scale of rabbinic voices who already stand against the death penalty.

The most recent two events opposing the bill also do not include developments in the greater world within just the past week alone, when the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty issued a statement, “Calling Urgent Attention to Proposals for the Death Penalty in Israel”. Signatories of that statement included Iran Human Rights, Sohram Der, Justice Project Pakistan, Mena Rights Group, Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, Reprieve, Abolition of the Death Penalty in Iraq, Global Campus of Human Rights, Committee to Protect Journalists, Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture, and Salaam.

With each passing day, the Jewish and greater world are recognizing the manifold reas­ons why this death pen­alty bill is, by defin­i­tion, an abom­in­a­tion that, if enacted, would spell catastrophe for Israeli society and Jews everywhere. Those factors include the unmistakable truths that the death pen­alty is not a deterrence, incites further martyrs to attack Israel, viol­ates the human right to life, always con­sti­tutes tor­ture, risks execut­ing the inno­cent, is racist in its applic­a­tion, and would traumatize Israeli citizen executioners.

From Adolf Hitler to Don­ald Trump to Ben-Gvir – the scepter of execution has been used as a political tool, particularly during election campaigns. It is for sound reasons that Jew­ish tra­di­tion renders the death pen­alty vir­tu­ally impossible to carry out. In the wake of the events of the Holocaust, it especially behooves Jews everywhere to remember that many exe­cu­tion meth­ods are dir­ect Nazi legacies, includ­ing fir­ing squad, gass­ing, and lethal injec­tion. Famed death pen­alty abol­i­tion­ist Elie Wiesel best artic­u­lated the stance of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty” when he famously said of cap­ital pun­ish­ment that – in the shadow of the Holo­caust – “death should never be the answer in a civ­il­ized soci­ety.”  Israeli law­makers should heed Wiesel’s mes­sage and recog­nize that the unnecessary, egregious trauma of imposing exe­cu­tions is not the answer in Israel today, and never should be – anywhere.

For all these reasons and more, Jews in Israel and across the world have spoken out vociferously against this bill – and will continue to do so until Knesset members heed our voices of reason.

Cantor Michael J. Zoosman, MSM, BCC

Co-Founder: L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty

Advisory Committee Member: Death Penalty Action

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