‘Jewish Blood Is Not Cheap’: Israel Passes Controversial Death Penalty Law for Palestinian Terrorists

Israeli lawmakers on Monday passed a contentious law allowing the death penalty for Palestinian terrorists from the West Bank, a move supporters said was needed to strengthen deterrence and deliver justice, but which critics condemned as immoral and at odds with Judaism.

The legislation, pushed by firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech — whose husband was killed in a terror attack in 2003 — would make capital punishment mandatory in certain terrorism cases. The bill eliminates the need for a unanimous verdict from the judicial panel and requires that any sentence be carried out by hanging within 90 days, marking one of the most far-reaching changes to Israel’s penal framework in decades.

Ben-Gvir hailed the measure as a “historic victory” for Israel, calling it a “moral and just” law that would end the cycle in which terrorists kill, are jailed, and later released through hostage and prisoner exchange deals or political pressure.

“Whoever takes a life, the state will take his life,” he said. “This law restores deterrence, restores justice, and sends a clear and bold message to our enemies: Jewish blood is not cheap.”

Son Har-Melech also said the law would mean “no more cycle of murder, imprisonment, and release in deals, but a clear eye. Whoever chooses to murder Jews because they are Jews forfeits their right to live.”

“This is a message of justice, deterrence, and national responsibility,” she added. “This is also true Jewish morality. One that does not settle for temporary salvation ensures that evil will not strike again.”

She added that she had vowed to make sure the grief she suffered as a result of her husband’s murder would not happen to others. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had previously expressed reservations about the bill, entered the chamber to back it during Monday evening’s final vote.

Some opposition lawmakers warned the law crossed both a moral and strategic red line, arguing it would do little to deter terrorism while further eroding Israel’s legal and ethical standing. Labor MK Gilad Kariv said the legislation violated international law and could leave Israeli soldiers and prison guards exposed to war crimes accusations against their will.

“How can you call it justice if someone can be sentenced to death without a unanimous ruling?” Kariv added. “Is that the reverence for life that Jewish tradition teaches us?”

Kariv’s party, together with several other opposition factions and human rights groups, said it would petition the High Court of Justice to strike down the law.

One of those groups, Rabbis for Human Rights, said, “A death penalty policy runs contrary to the spirit of Jewish law and to the principle of the sanctity of life at its core. It ignores warnings from senior security officials who cautioned that the law would not deter but rather escalate violence, and it harms the Jewish and democratic character of the state.”

Some of the harshest objections focused less on sympathy for terrorists than on whether the law was morally coherent, legally defensible, or even likely to work.

Avishai Greenzeig, a rightwing legal commentator, blasted the legislation as “one of the dumbest laws” he had seen, according to a report in the Hebrew-language Arutz 7 site, arguing its vague drafting was so poor that courts would likely avoid using it in practice.

“Anyone who applauds this law is selling hot air to the public,” he said. 

Supporters of the law have pointed to the US, where the death penalty is still practiced in a number of states, but critics say the Israeli legislation departs from the legal norms that make it defensible abroad.

“It’s easy to defend the law in the United States where many states still uphold the death penalty,” former Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren told The Algemeiner.

“But by denying those convicted of the right to appeal and by distinguishing between Arab and Jewish terrorists, the Israeli law cannot be defended in America’s court of public opinion,” he added. 

Former MK Einat Wilf, founder of the new Oz political party, who has long argued that Israel must respond to Palestinian violence and rejectionism with strategic clarity rather than symbolic gestures, said the law would leave Israel paying a price abroad without gaining anything meaningful in return.

“As with so many things this government does – it is all empty words where we gain nothing and only pay,” she told The Algemeiner. 

The law would only bring Israel “international condemnations, confused allies, frustrated friends,” she added.

The law’s passage prompted several protests, including by the Reform Movement in Israel, which held a demonstration on Tuesday outside of the Knesset. 

“We recognize, unequivocally, Israel’s right and obligation to defend its citizens from terror and violence. We mourn all those who have suffered devastating loss through the many terrorist attacks Israelis have suffered,” the movement said in a statement, describing the law as “dangerous.”

It “contradicts the Jewish tradition’s teachings about capital punishment that emphasize the rarity with which it should be applied,” the group said. 

Palestinians in the West Bank also gathered to protest in several cities, including Ramallah, Tubas, Nablus, and Jenin in the north, as well as Hebron.

The Palestinian Authority called it a “dangerous escalation.”

“Israel has no sovereignty over Palestinian land,” the PA foreign ministry said on X. “This law once again reveals the nature of the Israeli colonial system, which seeks to legitimize extrajudicial killing under legislative cover.”

The law also drew swift international condemnation. The United Nations urged Israel to repeal what it called a “discriminatory” measure that “violated international law,” while the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom also criticized the bill.