Until a few days ago, Israel maintained a substantial moratorium on the death penalty; how did this law come to be enacted? What is the political fabric that originated it?
The death penalty is an underground issue that has been ongoing for at least three years; it was already being discussed in 2023. The death penalty in the Israeli legal system was abolished in 1954 for common crimes, but it remained technically admissible for crimes such as genocide. It has been used twice: in 1948 against Meir Tobiansky, an army officer falsely accused of treason and later posthumously rehabilitated; and in 1962 for Adolf Eichmann. Since then, it has not been applied, although formally it has never disappeared from the penal system. This provision does not introduce the death penalty but expands the cases to which it can be applied.
It is clearly a major victory for Otzma Yehudit, the party of Ben Gvir, now Minister of National Security, who has been arrested and convicted several times for incitement to racial hatred and acts of terrorism. This is not a detail. We are talking about a formation that twenty years ago was considered unacceptable, rehabilitated by Netanyahu to build a majority: the famous 61 seats. Over the years, Netanyahu has burned all his allies, which is why he brought in Otzma Yehudit, HaTzionut HaDatit, and Noam: far-right, radical, and messianic parties, representing the most extreme factions of the settlers. Ben Gvir, for example, keeps a portrait of Baruch Goldstein in his office, the man who entered a mosque in Hebron and killed 29 people at prayer. But the point is that Netanyahu needs them, and they have understood they are the swing vote. Without them, there is no majority, and this gives them enormous negotiating power. They have progressively and stealthily shifted the political agenda further to the right. Israel has been a right-wing country for years, but today it is an extreme right country — and in this government, Netanyahu is not even the most right-wing; he is a tightrope walker holding together pieces that surpass him.
Added to this is the role of the Orthodox parties, central on the issue of military conscription: either they obtain exemption or they threaten to bring down the government. In this balance, the far-right parties are decisive, and the death penalty is one of their identity battles. When the law passed, Ben Gvir celebrated in the chamber, already in the first reading he was wearing a noose pin around his neck. He said: we have made history; years ago it was unthinkable to approve such a thing. And indeed it is so: the law passed all three required readings and marks how much Israeli politics has shifted.
How does this law fit into an already existing legal asymmetry between Israeli and Palestinian citizens?
This law operates on two distinct tracks: on one side, the Israeli civil courts, which judge Israeli citizens; on the other, the military courts in the West Bank, which judge exclusively Palestinians. It thus builds on an already existing duality and introduces new standards in both systems. In the Israeli civil system, that is in ordinary courts, it introduces the death penalty for the intentional killing of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel. This is clearly a vague and subjective formulation, but it is not a casual vagueness: it is a deliberate choice, aimed at broadening the scope of the provision as much as possible.
The most relevant point, however, concerns the military courts. Here, the death penalty becomes the rule, not the exception. Anyone who commits a murder qualified as an act of terrorism — and in military courts almost everything is qualified as terrorism — can be sentenced to death. It can be applied even without a request from the prosecution: a simple majority of the judges is enough, whereas before unanimity was required. Furthermore, the execution must take place within 90 days, and the sentence cannot be commuted, so there are no real margins for review. The requirements for military judges are also lowered: previously, they had to hold at least the rank of lieutenant colonel, thus a certain level of experience; now this constraint is removed. Exceptions are provided where the penalty can be converted to life imprisonment, but for “special reasons” that are not defined. Here too, the vagueness is not a mistake; it is a choice.
In the way this law is written, then, is terrorism treated as an exclusively Palestinian phenomenon?
Israeli citizens are effectively excluded from this discipline. Not only because military courts judge exclusively Palestinians, but also because in civil courts the death penalty is provided for those who act with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel. Which Israeli does that? None. So it is a provision that, despite a deliberately ambiguous and lax formulation, is clearly discriminatory. The result is very concrete: the settler who kills a Palestinian does not risk the death penalty, while the Palestinian who kills an Israeli does. And this is what is meant when talking about a double legal standard.
Does the Israeli Supreme Court have the tools to stop this law?
The Court has not yet taken a position. Many appeals have been filed, including by Adalah, ACRI, and also Rabbis for Human Rights. We will see if it will address the merits, but it is very likely: this text is problematic not only ethically and politically but also legally and with respect to international law. When the Court intervenes, the political response will be predictable: “the Court endangers the Jews.” This rhetoric has been ongoing for some time. And it is paradoxical, because the same Court in the past had excluded these parties from electoral competition precisely because they incited racism or did not recognize Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Today those forces are inside the government and attack the Court. This too says a lot about the ongoing transformation.
Israel’s elections are expected in November 2026; what will happen? Can Netanyahu run again or does he have a possible successor?
It is realistic to think that the Supreme Court will intervene in the coming months, probably before the vote, and this will become a central campaign issue. Netanyahu can run again because in Israel there is no term limit. And over these years he has been very careful not to build any heir apparent. In the Likud— the main Israeli center-right party, which he has led for years — there is no real successor: those who tried to position themselves there, like Gideon Sa’ar when he requested primaries, were effectively pushed out. It is a deliberate choice. Leaders like Netanyahu avoid creating a successor because the heir is the first who can unseat them. Part of his power lies precisely in presenting himself as irreplaceable. There was a commercial years ago where he was the “Bibi-sitter,” the only adult keeping a class of children in line: the message was exactly this. Today, in a war context, this narrative is even stronger: “do you want to replace me now?” On one hand, it builds the emergency; on the other, it carefully avoids creating alternatives. The theme of irreplaceability is central for him. The problem is that on the other side there is no clear alternative. The opposition is very fragmented — Arab parties, center, center-left, and even right-wing — often with incompatible positions. Even when an “anti-Bibi” government was formed, it was held together only by that: the fact of not wanting Netanyahu. It had no common vision. And this remains the knot: without a cohesive opposition, even a very tough political clash risks not translating into a real alternative.
It seems that the recourse to an external enemy, at this moment, also serves to postpone a profound redefinition of the identity of the State of Israel that would prelude a clash between an increasingly capitalist and secular part of Israel and the ultra-Orthodox world.
There is a need to have a constant external enemy, thus a state of war that is not the exception but the rule. Not a state of emergency, but a state in permanent emergency, almost an ontological condition. And this serves to divert attention. It serves to divert attention from Netanyahu’s personal troubles, from Israel’s internal transformations, from a growing level of democratic erosion, and from an economy that no longer performs as before. It also serves to shift attention from structural issues like military conscription: the Court says all citizens are equal and must serve, but if the ultra-Orthodox do not get exemption, they bring down the government. Finally, it serves to divert attention from the advance of the occupation, which is now de facto and galloping. So yes, it serves to shift attention from internal problems, from increasing injustices, from demographic transformations. Because Arabs are growing and ultra-Orthodox are growing, and the question is: what kind of state will it be in thirty years?
More than a civil war, I would speak of profound internal transformations — legal, institutional, social, economic — that Israel is undergoing and that are often not read systematically. Today we talk about the death penalty, two years ago we talked about judicial reform, but we cannot put these elements together. In reality, they are connected. The occupation is not the sick child of the State of Israel: it is the healthy child of an internal constitutional degeneration that in recent years has become increasingly marked.
