Following its initial approval in the Knesset, the Israeli bill enabling the death penalty for cases of “terrorism” has triggered a global crisis. This initiative, promoted by the ultranationalist Jewish Power party and backed by Netanyahu’s government, has not only been condemned by humanitarian organizations: it represents a triple fracture. It violates the elementary principle of legality by allowing its retroactive application; it enshrines a definition of “terrorist” so vague that it institutionalizes arbitrariness; and it betrays the substratum of mercy common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Born from the vindictive fervor following the October 7th attacks, this law—international jurists warn—will not bring security, but a spiral of pain that will compromise Israel’s legacy. In this scenario, the conscience of judges stands as the last trench to defend not only the rule of law, but our shared humanity.
Israel: Itamar Ben Gvir Secures Preliminary Approval for His Death Penalty Law for “Terrorists”
In a move that has intensified international alarm, the Israeli governing coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu, driven by the Jewish Power party of its National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, has taken a concrete step to materialize one of its most controversial policies.
This past Monday, November 10th, the plenum of the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) approved in a preliminary reading the Bill that facilitates the imposition of the death penalty against Palestinians accused of “terrorism.” This initiative is not merely a rhetorical escalation, but a tangible legislative advance moving towards its enactment, resting on two deeply concerning pillars. Firstly, its potential retroactive application violates the universal principle of legality, regressing to a pre-modern conception of law where legal certainty does not prevail. Secondly, there is the questionable deliberate ambiguity of its wording, defining a “terrorist” as anyone acting with “intent to harm the State.” This interpretable wording turns it into a weapon of political arbitrariness, capable of criminalizing a broad spectrum of dissent.
This failure to not legislate for a just future is compounded by a profound historical and ethical contradiction. The law not only disregards modern legal principles but also betrays the core ethical teachings of the very Abrahamic traditions that form its cultural context. It is more inflexible than the rigorous procedural justice of Rabbinic Judaism, ignores the commandment of mercy central to Christianity, and scorns the intricate mechanisms for reparation and clemency found in Islamic law.
In seeking to ground its authority in a particular identity, it commits a deeper transgression: it severs itself from centuries of accumulated wisdom, philosophical reflection, and the foundational pursuit of justice that defines these traditions at their best. This represents an irreparable rupture not just with international law, but with the very wisdom of the past it claims to defend.
Born of fear and a thirst for vengeance, this law will not bring security; it will deepen wounds and compromise Israel’s legacy. In this grim scenario, the final barrier will be the conscience of judges, called upon to an act of objection that defends not only law, but our shared humanity.
A Dangerous Threshold for Israel Itself
The Israeli Knesset has crossed a threshold many hoped would remain closed forever. The approval was only in its preliminary reading. It is a legal and ethical earthquake that shakes the foundations of the world’s most respected legal systems, from Rome to Anglo-Saxon common law, through the continental tradition and the highest principles of Islamic justice.
However, the current political dynamic does not bode well for the bill being rejected in the upcoming votes. On the contrary, everything indicates a clear path towards its enactment. This raises an abysmal question: Does introducing administrative and judicial death truly improve the security or morality of a society already traumatized by death?
In a land where death is already an everyday outcome, inflicted in attacks, military operations, and rocket fire, institutionalizing it from the State does not seem like a solution, but the consecration of a cycle of vengeance. When the law is written with the ink of rancor, it ceases to be a beacon of justice and becomes just another instrument of oppression. And that is a threshold which, once crossed, is very difficult to return from.
The Original Sin of the Law: Retroactivity and the Betrayal of the Principle of Legality
The most alarming aspect of this law is its potential retroactive application. This concept directly clashes with one of the most sacred pillars of modern law, inherited directly from Roman Law: Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege (No crime, no penalty without a pre-existing law).
- Roman and Continental Law: This principle, enshrined in the constitutions of Europe and Latin America and in international treaties like the Geneva Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is the cornerstone of justice. It guarantees that an individual cannot be punished for an act that, at the time it was committed, was not defined as a crime or did not carry such a severe penalty. The reason is profoundly human: the law must be predictable. A citizen must be able to know the consequences of their actions before committing them. Judging and executing someone based on a law that did not exist at the time is a manifest injustice; it is changing the rules of the game after it has been played.
- Anglo-Saxon Common Law: In the Anglo world, the prohibition of ex post facto laws is equally entrenched. The United States Constitution (Article I, Sections 9 and 10) expressly forbids it. Justice cannot be a surprise. A judge trained in this tradition would look with horror upon the attempt to punish a person for a crime that, at the time of its commission, was not punishable by death.
The Lethal Ambiguity: “Harming the State of Israel”
The law focuses on “terrorists” who act “with the intent to harm the State of Israel.” This definition is so elastic that it can encompass almost any act of resistance, including legitimate defense against occupation under international law. Where is the line drawn? A stone thrown by a teenager at a protest? Membership in a political group labeled “terrorist”?
This deliberate vagueness in what we know of this law turns it into a political weapon, or runs the risk of being instrumental, rather than a tool of justice. A rigorous legal analysis demands examining the specific definition of the crime, as well as the mitigating and aggravating factors and exemptions that any well-drafted law must contemplate. However, it is precisely the ambiguity of its formulation, especially in subjective concepts like “the intent to harm the State of Israel,” that prevents clear scrutiny and makes it a malleable tool for those in power.
Legal Analysis: When the Law is Written with the Ink of Vengeance and Does Not Seek Reparation
The true character of a legal norm is often revealed in its Statement of Motives. This is especially true as an interpretive compass in Criminal Law, but if a language of vengeance prevails—in the form of the cold equation “a life for a life”—over the principles of procedural justice and the restorative objective of repairing harm, it will confirm that we are facing a profound regression.
All indications are that a law is being forged which chooses the annihilation of the offender as its ultimate goal. Even in cases where the loss of life can be legally attributed to them, it does not repair the victims’ pain nor restore social order; it forecloses it. In doing so, it perverts the very essence of the Law, which is certainty, equity, and the pursuit of a recomposition, however imperfect it may be.
This regression is aggravated when the law is born from a specific temporal context of “legislating in the heat of the moment”—in this case, driven by the shock and fury following the October 7th, 2023 attacks. A statement of motives anchored in the trauma of the moment and in political urgency is a fragile and dangerous foundation. Instead of creating a solid and enduring legal framework inspired by the principle of reparation, it generates a rigid and reactive instrument whose final verdict is death. This response, far from any restorative ideal, does not heal society’s wounds; it consecrates violence as the only possible language of justice.
This lack of prospective vision poses a serious problem of relevance: What will happen when contexts change? A law whose motives are exhausted in a specific circumstance quickly becomes obsolete, incapable of adapting to new realities. Will its ambiguous and opportunistic wording allow for the development of new jurisprudence to adapt it to the times? Or, on the contrary, will its inherent rigidity and inequity condemn it to the need for urgent reform or, directly, to its abolition?
The answer seems to lean towards the latter. Too much ambiguity and opportunism, and too little space for the best legislative practice, that which impartially pursues the reparation of harm and the administration of serene justice, not conditioned by the heat of current events.
In International Humanitarian Law, concepts must be strictly defined to prevent abuse. The right to a fair trial, included in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, requires that charges be clear and specific. A definition as broad as this one violates that fundamental right and opens the door to arbitrariness and persecution.
“Retroactive Justice”: When a Modern State Abandons the Wisdom of Its Own Traditions and Religious and Civil Reason
As this draft of the “New Israeli Law Regulating the Death Penalty” reaches us, it is a return to ‘An Eye for an Eye’. It ignores centuries of Judeo-Christian ethical evolution and also that of Islam in its purest root.
It is paradoxical that, from a simplistic perspective, the Arab-Muslim world is associated with penal harshness, when the Islamic tradition (Sharia) contains safeguards of a high humanity that this Israeli law completely ignores.
From the perspective of the religious traditions that share an Abrahamic root, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, observing this law makes the contradiction even deeper. Far from reflecting the highest principles of this common heritage, the law seems to be based on a selective and archaic reading of it.
In Judaism, the source of authority for the State of Israel, life is sacred as it is a gift from God (Yesod Nefesh). While the Torah mentions the death penalty, the rabbis of the Talmud surrounded it with such a quantity of procedural restrictions—requiring two eyewitnesses who warned the accused of the exact penalty, and a unanimous verdict—that its effective application became virtually impossible. The Talmud even states that a court that executes a person once every seventy years is considered “destructive.” The tradition emphasizes procedural justice over summary punishment, and concepts like Teshuvá (repentance and return) suggest that redemption is always a divine possibility that humans should not prematurely close.
For its part, Christianity, emerging from the Jewish trunk, radicalized mercy. The teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (“Love your enemies”) and his intervention in the story of the adulterous woman (“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone”) constitute a direct critique of retributive justice. The central message shifts vengeance towards forgiveness and the transformation of the heart, prioritizing the rehabilitation of the sinner over their annihilation.
Therefore, this law not only appears more inflexible than Islamic justice, but it betrays the most humanistic developments of its own foundational religious tradition. By institutionalizing the death penalty in an expeditious and targeted manner, it opts for an archaic and severe version of “an eye for an eye,” ignoring centuries of rabbinical interpretation that sought to limit it and of Christian philosophy that advocated for overcoming it. In the name of earthly security, it moves away from a principle that the three religions of the book uphold: that ultimate justice belongs to God, and that human justice, fallible by nature, must always lean towards the preservation of life and the possibility of redemption.
The Judge Before Their Conscience: The Duty of Objection
From a universal humanist vocation and maximum respect for human life. In this somber panorama, if such a legal text is approved, the last line of defense that remains is the individual conscience of the judge or magistrate. A jurist with a minimum of decency, trained in any of the mentioned traditions, faces an unavoidable moral and professional dilemma.
Can they, in conscience, apply a law that is? If we order its questionable motives from greatest to least:
- Retroactive, violating the principle of legality.
- Ambiguous, facilitating its arbitrary use.
- Inhumane, eliminating proportionality and the possibility of redemption.
- Created in a context of collective passion, where vengeance (lex talionis) is disguised as justice?
The answer, for an upright judge, should be objection. They can and should declare themselves incompetent, allege a conflict of conscience, or simply refuse to apply it based on its incompatibility with the superior principles of Israeli and international law. Israeli courts have a tradition of independence. It is the moment for judges to demonstrate that their loyalty is to Justice, with a capital J, not to an unjust law.
Conclusion: The Law That Must Not Come to Be
“This law represents more than a controversial policy. It is the symptom of a society that, in its pain and fear, is willing to sacrifice its legal soul. In an act of legal self-negation, it betrays the heritage of Rome, scorns the guarantees of common law, ignores the protections of continental law, and, as has been seen, proves even crueler than the principles of mercy present in Islamic justice. Thereby, it infringes an ethical principle that transcends all borders and constitutes the basis of all civilized coexistence: the golden rule of reciprocity.
Whether formulated in its negative version—‘Do not do to others what you would not want done to you’, a principle found in Judaism (Tobit 4:15) and many other traditions—or in its positive version—‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18)—this universal mandate demands coherence. A justice that claims to be legitimate cannot build a penal system for the ‘other’ that it would consider an aberration and an injustice if applied to its own. In doing so, not only is international law violated, but the very essence of equity that gives meaning to the law is broken.”
“There is no justified act of violence.
Violence, in whatever form it takes, returns upon the one who carries it out.”
— Silo, The Message of Silo (“The Inner Look”)
Erecting the death penalty on the shifting foundations of retroactivity and ambiguity will not bring security or peace. It will only sow more pain, legitimize vengeance, and stain Israel’s history with a chapter that future generations will most certainly judge with severity. Something is deeply wrong. And in the name of our shared humanity and universal justice, it must be stated clearly.
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