1,200 former Israeli officials urge Knesset to reject death penalty bill
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More than 1,200 former Israeli officials and public figures have signed a petition opposing a proposed bill that would impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners, according to Hebrew media reports published on Tuesday.
The signatories include former Supreme Court judges, Nobel laureates, ex-heads of the Shin Bet and Mossad intelligence agencies, academics, university presidents, former Israel Defense Forces chiefs of staff Dan Halutz and Moshe Yaalon, as well as former prime minister Ehud Olmert.
In the petition, the group said it “strongly opposes the death penalty bill currently being debated in the Knesset in preparation for its second and third readings” and called on lawmakers to vote it down.
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The statement argued that reinstating capital punishment would impose “a moral stain” on Israel and contradict its identity as a Jewish and democratic state. It added that the death penalty is incompatible with a state committed to human rights and that there is no scientific evidence proving it deters violent crime.
The proposed legislation, promoted by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, would reportedly apply the death penalty in cases involving Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis. Critics of the bill say it creates discriminatory legal standards and would require military courts in the occupied territories to impose capital punishment without judicial discretion or the possibility of commutation.
The petition further warned that reintroducing the death penalty would run counter to global trends and could conflict with Israel’s international legal obligations, potentially increasing its diplomatic isolation.
The bill remains under parliamentary consideration.
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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
