Israel’s decision to expand the death penalty, now approved by the Knesset, is already being framed by critics as a moral collapse. It is nothing of the sort. It is what happens when a country is pushed, repeatedly and relentlessly, into a corner.

For decades, Israel exercised a restraint that few Western nations have ever had to test. Capital punishment existed in law but was used only once: against Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Final Solution that led to the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust. That was an exceptional act for an exceptional crime. Ever since, Israel has resisted expanding its use, even as terrorism became a grim feature of daily life.

Then came the October 7 attacks.

The massacre of 1,200 people and the abduction of around 250 hostages did not just expose Israel’s vulnerabilities. It exposed the bankruptcy of a long-standing assumption: that restraint would be reciprocated, or at least not exploited.

It has been exploited systematically.

Israel now faces an absurd and intolerable reality, a State forced to trade hundreds of convicted terrorists for a single hostage. A State forced to negotiate with those who butcher its civilians. A State forced to accept that those it releases today may well return to kill tomorrow.

Why should any nation accept this?

This is not hypothetical. It is a pattern. Terrorist organizations plan with it in mind. The taking of hostages is not incidental, it is strategic. It works because Israel, unlike its enemies, values every life.

Layered onto this is the grotesque reality of what is euphemistically called “pay-for-slay”, a system of financial rewards for those who carry out attacks and for their families. Far from deterring violence, it incentivizes it. When international aid continues to flow into environments where such systems operate, the question becomes unavoidable: are Western taxpayers, however indirectly, helping sustain the very terrorism they claim to oppose?

The message this sends is as dangerous as it is clear: terrorism pays.

It pays in leverage. It pays in freedom. It even pays in cash.

Ask the family of Australian teenager Malki Roth. In the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem, 16 civilians were murdered and more than 130 were injured. Among the dead was Malki, just 15 years old. The perpetrator, Ahlam Tamimi, was convicted and sentenced to multiple life terms. Yet in 2011, she was released as part of a prisoner exchange deal and today lives freely in Jordan and to this day is proud of her actions. Justice was not served. It was traded away.

And still, Israel is told to show restraint.

From where, exactly, is this advice coming?

Since October 7, many Israelis have concluded that Western allies are more comfortable criticizing Israel than confronting the realities it faces. In Australia, the government of Anthony Albanese, with Penny Wong as Foreign Minister has been quick to continuously condemn Israel’s actions, even as it fights an enemy openly committed to its destruction.

That posture was on full display this week when Israel’s Ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman addressed the National Press Club of Australia. The questioning was not merely robust; it was revealing. An ambassador was expected not just to explain policy, but to justify his country’s right to defend itself at all.

Why must Israel explain what no other nation is asked to explain? Why must it justify defending its citizens against those who celebrate martyrdom and openly call for its destruction?

Western countries are fortunate. They do not live under the constant, immediate threat of terrorism that Israelis do. Their civilians are not routinely targeted. Their children are not raised with the expectation of rocket sirens.

The calculus is different when violence is not hypothetical but constant, when the victims are not statistics, but neighbors, friends, and family.

And yet, the lectures continue.

Perhaps Penny Wong might instead explain the contradictions closer to home. Why did Tony Burke grant a visa to Mizanur Rahman Azhari, an Islamic preacher reportedly banned from the UK and known for inflammatory rhetoric about Jews? This, from a government that claims it will not tolerate hate speech.

The double standard is glaring. Israeli speakers are scrutinized, even excluded, while others are waved through.

At some point, the question must be asked, whose safety is being prioritized?

A government’s first duty is to protect its citizens. Yet time and again, political calculation appears to take precedence. The result is a growing perception, not just in Israel, but among many observers, that consistency has been sacrificed and that votes take precedence.

All of this matters, because it forms the backdrop to Israel’s decision.

The expansion of the death penalty is not a first resort. Israel has tried the alternatives.

It has pursued peace deals, made concessions, withdrew from Gaza in 2005 in the hope of peace and shown restraint under pressure that few nations would tolerate. It has taken risks for the possibility of coexistence.

None of it has worked.

Each attempt has been met not with lasting peace, but with continued or intensified violence. Each concession has been tested, and too often, exploited.

When terrorists become bargaining chips, when justice is traded for temporary reprieve, and when allies offer criticism but no credible alternatives, restraint stops looking like principle and starts looking like vulnerability.

Israel did not arrive here lightly.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)