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........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)