Apr 22

Apr 22 Israel’s New Death Penalty Law is Made for Palestinians

Photo by Hala Photography from Pexels.

The following article is a critique of Zionism, and not to be conflated with antisemitism or anti-Jewish sentiment.

The Balfour Declaration was signed in 1917 by the British Empire, stating that the lands of Palestine would become a “Homeland for the Jewish people,” lands that were already home to thousands of Jews, Muslims, and Christians living together peaceably. Over the next 31 years, radical Zionists, who believed that the entire mandate of Palestine should be a home solely for the Jewish people, would slowly gain influence in the Levant, until the violence crescendoed with the Nakba (which translates to catastrophe/disaster in English) in 1948. This was the beginning of the Palestinian ethnic cleansing, with over 700,000 Palestinians being forcibly displaced or killed. Zionist occupiers burned towns and poisoned the wells of Palestinian villages, then settled into the homes of the newly made refugees. The Nakba would become the foundation of the Israeli state.

Since then, the Israeli government has expanded its sphere of influence by capturing more Palestinian land for settlement. The Zionist government of occupied Palestine has terrorized the native population, whether it be through the direct violence of settlers or by the violence of the state. The 2023 assault on the Gaza Strip is the most glaring recent example of the expansionist nature of the state's existence. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed by the complete leveling of an entire region, with Israeli real estate agencies eyeing up the land for settlement after the abject devastation of Gaza. The continuation of Palestinian genocide in the Gaza Strip has gained much global attention, but the interworkings of Israeli aparthid are more unknown to those not involved with the Palestinian liberation movement.

Part of this system of oppression is the deceptively named Death Penalty for Terrorists Law. On March 30 of 2026, the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, voted 62 to 58 to pass a bill making the death penalty the default sentence for those convicted under terrorism charges without the ability for appeal. Within 90 days of a conviction, anybody sentenced will be hanged.

The exact wording of the bill reads: "[To] establish the death penalty for terrorists who carried out murderous terror attacks, as part of the fight against terrorism.,"(2) It’s not hard to believe that this law was created to persecute the Palestinian population and it's not an unknown fact that the Israeli government uses the label of terrorist to demonize the native population’s resistance to occupation and justify the state's genocide. This piece of legislation is vague enough to give the state a level of deniability with its indiscriminate targeting of Palestinians. The systematic killing of Palestinians was already a key mechanism of the Zionist occupation, but now it is being enshrined into law.

How can it be certain that this bill does intend to solely target Palestinians? The wording of the bill is not overtly discriminatory, and the term Palestinian isn’t even mentioned. The answer is that the death penalty surrounding the nebulous “terrorism” only applies to the military courts; courts run by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) that operate outside of the Israeli state in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank. Currently, the bill states “[those convicted of terrorism’s] sentence shall be death, and this penalty only.”(2) The reason that this is concerning, is that there are no Israeli citizens who live under this military jurisdiction, only Palestinians are governed by the IDF, which already has a track record of intensely targeting and punishing natives. The conviction rate of these courts in occupied Palestine could be near 100%.

Obviously, the state itself will never admit to its statistics when actively committing an ethnic cleansing , but a 2011 statistic leaked by Haaretz revealed that 99.74% of all cases brought to the court ended with a conviction. Of the 9,542 Palestinians arrested by IDF authorities, only 25 were acquitted, 2,016 of which were terror-related cases.(3) The same statistic leak revealed that “the military appeals courts decidedly favor the prosecution, with appeals court judges accepting 67 percent of appeals filed by the prosecution, as opposed to only 33 percent of [the defence].”

This year, B’Tselem, a human rights organization based in Jerusalem, reported on the situation and stated, “These courts have an approximately 96% conviction rate, based largely on ‘confessions’ extracted under duress and torture during interrogations.”(4) The target of this bill being “terrorists” means that the IDF doesn’t need evidence, probable cause, or even a reason to arrest someone. Simply finding any Palestinian in the wrong place at the wrong time is enough to take them to court, force a false confession out of them, and now execute them. There are around 9,000 Palestinians in Israeli custody, labeled as “unlawful combatants.”(4) Who now is to say that these 9,000 are not only unlawful combatants, but terrorists to be sentenced to death?

That should be a horrifying set of statistics for everyone. It’s obvious that this is a direct retaliation to the growing support for the freedom of Palestine and the resistance in Gaza. The assault on Gaza has decimated the Palestinian population, but it has also revealed to an international audience the nature of apartheid in Israel and the categorical violence Palestinians are subject to. To continue in its occupation, the genocide of Palestinians needs to become systemic, methodical, and above all else, legalized. The veil of legal protection is how the state not only manufactures consent among the people, but also how the perpetrators of this horrific violence can skirt any semblance of accountability. The Isreali state is trying to set up the possibility for someone complicit in genocide to be “just following orders” and acting within the realm of morality, otherwise known as the Nuremberg defense.

The state that cried terrorist is not a new tactic for hiding oppression, but a tried and true method developed right here at home in the U.S. of A.

Since 9/11, the U.S. has used the excuse of terrorism to impose its imperial-capitalist agenda onto dozens of countries. G.W. Bush declared a “Global war on terror” and for “The Taliban stop harboring members of al-Qaeda.”(5) This involved both Afghanistan and Iraq; however, Saddam Hussein was not harboring al-Qaeda members nor WMDs as Bush claimed. The U.S. used the label of “terrorist” to justify the invasion of Iraq, a widely unpopular decision, to destabilize and overthrow a nation that was unfriendly to U.S. interests in the region.

Now Donald Trump is calling Iran “the largest sponsor of global terrorism,” which is a popular dehumanization of Iranians and a moral standing for war, to hopefully have the same effect as Bush. More important than the labeling of a state or country as terrorist is the broad labeling of Muslims as terrorists. The United States set the precedent for demonizing and subsequently persecuting an entire group, the exact same way that the Israeli occupation will do with its Palestinian death penalty.

A terrorist is easy to oppose but hard to define, and Israel is taking note from the U.S.’s definition. The FBI defines domestic terroism as “Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.”(6) It’s a definition that, on the surface, makes sense, but when more critically dissected, is not thorough enough to prevent the state from labeling any of its opponents terrorists. It does not speak of who needs to be targeted to be considered a terrorist attack. Are they targeting the state itself or civilians? How many casualties can there be? Can single instances of murder or assault count as terrorism? Under the U.S. definition, it's just someone who has a motive greater than self. There are hundreds of crimes committed under that pretext, but obviously, few are charged as terrorists. It's the ones that threaten the existence of state and capitalist hegemony that are considered terrorist.

Israel wants the same kind of persecutory ability to continue its genocide of the Palestinians and is simply following in the footsteps of the United States. The precedent has already been set, and there is no hiding the intentions of this bill. If it is not obvious when the United States lies about terroism to suppress political dissent, when Israel uses it to systematically exterminate and displace Palestinians, it will be. This law is relatively new and the ramifications have not yet been fully felt, but in the coming months, it is more important than ever to listen to Palestinian voices, to let yourself feel the range of horrified emotions, and to remain empathetic against the apathetic forces that tell us it's not worth it to care.

But above all else, we must believe with our whole heart in the liberation of the Palestinians, fight for every person locked away in Israeli cages, and be an active participant in the resistance to Zionism. A better world is possible not just in the Levant, but every country suffering under the heel of oppression. Palestine will be free, FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA.

Sources

Terrorism: Protecting the United States from terrorist attacks is the FBI’s number one priority.