The Israeli Knesset passed a new law that Arabs terrorists, but not Jews ones, who kill Israeli citizens could now receive the death penalty. However, it is highly likely that the Israeli Supreme Court will rule against the law, not only because it is discriminatory but because it goes against Jewish tradition. While the death penalty has always been legal in Jewish society, the Talmud, the major Jewish legal text, suggested it ought to be ordered just “once in 70 years,” reflecting the gravity of the matter.

This law was initiated and actively supported by Itamar Ben Gvir and the other 13 members of extreme rightwing anti-Arab Religious Zionist (RZ) party. It would be a mistake, however, to interpret its success as reflecting widespread anti-Arab sentiment. Indeed, over the last few years, a number of anti-Arab efforts by the RZ have been rebuffed. When they attempted to freeze already approved funding for Arab communities, the Interior Minister Arbel not only released the funds, but added substantial additional emergency funds to Arab municipalities. The current Netanyahu-led government did adopt a five-year plan for East Jerusalem. Its confirmation resolution stated, “The development and prosperity of Jerusalem…for the benefit of all its citizens…is based on the integration of East Jerusalem residents into the fabric of urban life and Israeli society.” The RZ unsuccessfully attempted to cut those funds that continued the aid to East Jerusalem students seeking entry into Israeli colleges. Since the initiation of this funding in 2018, the number of Palestinian students from East Jerusalem who study in Israel for the first year of their BA surged by 85 percent (to 1,218 students).

Rather than anti-Arab sentiment, a sufficient number of Knesset members supported the death penalty legislation because of the past experiences with lifetime sentences for terrorist murderers being part of exchanges for captured Israelis. There is no better example than the current Hebron mayor Tauseer Abu Sneineh.

Hebron is central to Jewish history as it is the home of the Cave of the Patriarchs, the resting place for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their family members. However, during the 700 years of Arab rule and during the British Mandate, Jews were not allowed to enter, only able to go to the seventh step of the entrance. Despite this impediment for centuries, religious Jews settled in Hebron to be near the sacred site. This ended in 1929 when the Grand Mufti led a pogrom that eliminated the Jewish community there. Only after the 1967 war were Jews finally able to reenter Hebron and finally visit the burial site. Former Prime Minister Ben-Gurion declared that “in the cause of peace, Israel should take nothing in the conquered territories, except for Hebron, which is more Jewish even than Jerusalem.”

As religious Jews began rebuilding their houses of study in Hebron, they were attacked by Islamist including Abu Sneineh. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1980 killing of six Jews at the Hadassah House, home to a Hebron yeshiva. He was released in a prison exchange in 1983 and returned from exile a decade later as a hero of the resistance.

When interviewed by Yardena Schwartz, Abu Sneineh claimed, “There is no holy place in Palestine which is linked with the Jewish religion through history.” When asked about the Tomb of the Patriarchs he replied, “The Ibrahimi Mosque is a Muslim holy place.” He then referred to the 2017 UNESCO designation of Hebron’s Old City, which includes the tomb, as a Palestinian World Heritage Site.

This viewpoint was amplified by Hebron University students Schwartz interviewed. Not only agreeing that Jews have no connection to the tomb, they claimed, “The Jews are known to be the killers of the prophets,” something I heard from a young Muslim guide I had in the Old City a decade ago. These views undoubtedly reflect the UN textbooks used in the West Bank that amplify the Palestinian narrative that Jews have no legitimate attachment to Palestine; they are colonial settlers who oppress the indigenous Arab populous.

It should not be surprising then that RZ, especially those living in Hebron or the adjacent Jewish community of Kiryat Arba, would be in the forefront of the death penalty initiative and that many other Jews would be sympathetic to this effort. This, of course, it doesn’t mean that one should support the law, I do not, but the facts presented here undermine the notion that anti-Arab sentiment was the reason that Knesset members outside the RZ supported the new law.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)