JVP unequivocally condemns Israeli parliament’s passage of Palestinian-only death penalty bill

With the passing of the death penalty bill, the Knesset has removed still more window dressing from Israel’s brutal apartheid regime. The Israeli government has now codified the unequal, racial application of the death penalty. This is a law designed to be applicable only to Palestinians.

In practice, this law will mean that Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis will likely be hanged, with no option of appeal, within a 90-day period. Whereas Israelis, convicted of killing anyone, will never face the death penalty.

Moreover, the law will mainly be applied to Palestinians who live in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, where they are tried in Israeli military courts, which have a 99% conviction rate. Israeli settlers living in the West Bank will continue to be tried in Israeli civilian courts, which almost never hold them to account, effectively being granted impunity to kill Palestinians. Israeli settlers, often supported by the Israeli military, have killed at least ten Palestinians in recent weeks.

Since the founding of the state of Israel, the Israeli government has instituted an implicit policy of capital punishment for Palestinians. Israeli forces have treated Palestinians in Israeli prisons inhumanely for decades, with thousands held for years without charge, and over 100 dying while incarcerated in the past two years. 

Israel’s new death penalty law places thousands of Palestinians at imminent risk of execution and escalates the systematic killing of Palestinians by the Israeli apartheid regime.

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The Jewish Voice for Peace family of organizations organizes a grassroots, multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of U.S. Jews into solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle, guided by a vision of justice, equality and dignity for all people. Jewish Voice for Peace Action (JVP Action), our 501(c)(4) organization, is now doing business as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), while our 501(c)(3) work continues through JVP Leadership and Culture Lab (JVP Lab).  JVP is the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world.