Civil rights org files petition against death penalty law, calls it ‘unconstitutional,’ ‘discriminatory’

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel files a petition to the High Court of Justice asking it to strike down the legislation passed this evening mandating the death penalty for West Bank Palestinians convicted of carrying out deadly terror attacks.

It bases its petition on two legal arguments.

The first is that the Knesset does not have the authority to pass legislation that applies to the Palestinian population of the West Bank since Israel does not hold sovereignty there, and because under the relevant international laws, which Israel largely recognizes, legislative authority lies with the military commander.

“While the Knesset has previously legislated to apply Israeli law to Israeli settlers, this law is categorically different: it applies to the protected Palestinian population,” ACRI says.

“The military’s own legal advisors warned the committee that this amounts to de facto annexation,” the organization adds.

Secondly, ACRI argues that the law is unconstitutional since it violates several fundamental rights laid out in Israel’s semi-constitutional Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, including the right to life, human dignity, due process, and equality.

The organization also argues that the law discriminates between Israeli and Palestinian civilians.

“West Bank Palestinians face near-mandatory death in military courts [under the new law], while the civilian track’s requirement to prove ‘the aim of negating the existence of the State of Israel’ ensures no Jewish perpetrator would ever qualify,” ACRI argues.

Several other organizations and political parties announce that they also intend to petition the court against the law, including the opposition Yesh Atid and Hadash–Ta’al parties.

“This law is not merely a punitive measure—it is an official declaration of the institutionalization of apartheid and racism, and the transformation of the legal system into yet another tool in the violent political repression of the Palestinian people,” says Hadash–Ta’al in a statement to the press.

The New Israel Fund, a left-wing organization that funds like-minded groups in Israel, also condemns the law, with its acting CEO Mickey Gitzin stating, “Make no mistake: this is a death-penalty law for Arabs alone. Its message is unmistakable — Jewish lives matter, Arab lives are cheap.”