https://arab.news/wd39b
Just when you think the current ultra-nationalist, religious, messianic Israeli government has reached the bottom of the moral abyss, its members somehow manage to descend even further — and who knows what is in store next? In its latest move, the sixth government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which day by day looks increasingly like the first government of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, has pushed a bill through the Knesset mandating the death penalty for the deliberate killing of a person with the intention of “negating the existence of the state of Israel.” The bill stipulates execution by hanging, restricts access to legal counsel and family visits, limits external oversight, and grants immunity to those involved in carrying out executions — everything that screams of summary trials rather than legality or justice.
The coalition mobilized almost all of its members to ensure that 62 lawmakers supported the bill, against 47 from opposition parties who voted against it. The law mandates that military courts, where these trials will be held, impose death by hanging as the default punishment. For all intents and purposes, this is a law that singles out Palestinians convicted of deadly terrorist acts, which by itself should be condemned. The history of safe convictions in Israeli military courts is questionable, and granting them such power is, at best, irresponsible and, at worst, sinister.
