[News] Israel advances Palestinians-only death penalty bill

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-advances-palestinians-only-death-penalty-bill>
Israel advances Palestinians-only death penalty bill

Tamara Nassar <https://electronicintifada.net/people/tamara-nassar> - 7
March 2023
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[image: People hold signs, flags and banners in front of a cube structure
that has the faces of Israeli government officials crossed out]

Palestinians take part in a demonstration in solidarity with detainees in
Israeli prisons, in Gaza City on 21 February.
APA images

Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons have entered their third week of
disobedience to protest brutal measures enforced by Israel’s
ultra-far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The minister is “fighting us with our bread and water,” the prisoners’
leadership said <http://cda.gov.ps/index.php/ar/ar-news-2/12462-4-9>,
referring to punishments that include even controlling their showers.

Ben-Gvir announced a series of punitive measures as Israeli lawmakers last
week advanced a bill that would allow the execution of Palestinians who
kill Israelis.

The government-backed bill passed its preliminary reading in the Knesset
alongside another similar measure, according
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/bill-on-death-penalty-for-palestinian-terrorists-passes-preliminary-knesset-vote/>
to *The Times of Israel*. It is expected that the two will be merged into a
single piece of legislation.

If passed into law, it would permit courts to put Palestinians who killed
Israelis to death if they did so out of so-called nationalistic motivations.

“However, it would not apply to an Israeli who killed a Palestinian,”
according to *The Times of Israel*, underscoring the openly racist and
apartheid nature of Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people.

The death penalty legislation was one of Ben-Gvir’s key campaign promises.

In defense of the bill, Israeli lawmakers lamented that Palestinians in
Israeli prisons could be released in prisoner exchanges or enjoy “pleasant”
conditions in the prisons.

Some even contended that imposing the death penalty might deter future
attacks against Israelis.

German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock expressed
<https://www.dw.com/en/germany-tells-israel-death-penalty-would-be-a-mistake/a-64844751>
rare disapproval to her Israeli counterpart last week at a press conference
in Berlin.

“We are firmly opposed to the death penalty, and we are raising this issue
all over the world,” Baerbock said. “All over the world, states are in the
process of abandoning this cruel practice, partly because it has been
proven that it is not effective as a deterrent,” Baerbock said.

But Baerbock appeared as much concerned about Israel’s image as any point
of principle.

She noted that the only time Israeli civilian courts have imposed the death
penalty was against Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal abducted in
Argentina by Mossad, tried in Jerusalem and hanged in 1962.

Baerbock claimed that this has “always been an impressive argument for
those of us who have defended Israel on the international stage against
unfair criticism” and that passing the death penalty “would be a big
mistake to break with this history.”

The elephant in the room is that Israeli personnel, encouraged by the
country’s top leaders, routinely extrajudicially execute
<https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20151014_summary_execution_joint_statement>
Palestinians who pose no threat, in the context of alleged attacks.

The head of the Palestinian Authority body responsible for prisoners
affairs said
<http://cda.gov.ps/index.php/en/51-slider-en/12411-abu-baker-palestinian-strugglers-have-no-fears-of-execution-and-israel-will-pay-the-price-for-passing-the-law>
that there is “no need to pass such laws, as the Israeli authorities are
practicing field executions every day against Palestinians.”
Looting of homes

Meanwhile, the most openly extreme right-wing Israeli government yet is
moving to make Palestinian prisoners’ lives even more miserable than they
already are.

Occupation soldiers raided and ransacked dozens of family homes of former
and current Palestinian detainees from East Jerusalem last month and stole
money and gold from them.

On 10 February, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant issued an order
imposing penalties on a specific list of former and current detainees. This
includes fines and freezing their bank accounts.

Israel’s pretext is that the detainees or their families had received funds
earmarked for prisoner welfare from the Palestinian Authority.

The Israeli military conducted
<https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/133601> a similar raid in the Silwan
neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem in late February.

The home invaders damaged belongings and stole large amounts of cash and
gold, according
<https://pchrgaza.org/en/in-latest-precedent-of-arbitrary-and-collective-punishment-measures-israeli-occupation-forces-seize-large-sums-of-money-and-gold-jewelry-from-homes-of-former-and-current-palestinian-detainees-in-east/>
to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

The human rights group noted that “such action has never been taken by any
Israeli government before.”

Israeli forces also issued fines and froze the bank accounts of certain
former and current detainees and their families. The Israeli fines exceeded
$700,000 in total.
“Break members of the family”

Muhammad, a former Palestinian prisoner, told The Electronic Intifada that
Israeli occupation forces raided his family home in the Old City of
Jerusalem in mid-February.

The man, whose real name is being withheld by The Electronic Intifada,
asserted that Israeli intelligence agents were primarily looking for money
and gold in the home, not political content.

“They removed the electrical sockets from the walls, they took off tiles
and they broke many other things in the house,” Muhammad said.

“It was clear the purpose was to break members of the family, not just
Muhammad,” the former detainee said.

Muhammad, who is in his 20s, spent eight years in Israeli prisons before
being released last year.

His father rushed to the bank the same day his son’s name appeared on the
list. He wanted to view his statement and withdraw money when he learned
that his account had been frozen by the Israeli government.

Israel has frozen nearly $30,000 of his father’s money, even though he said
he had proof that this money was from his income from his job. The bank
insisted the decision came from the government.

His father would only be able to use the bank account with specific
restrictions.

Muhammad told The Electronic Intifada that his and his father’s cars were
confiscated, despite the latter having been purchased years before Muhammad
was arrested and therefore impossible to have been bought with alleged PA
funds Israel claims he received.

Part of Israel’s pretext for seizing the property is its objection to
payments the families of Palestinian prisoners sometimes receive from the
PA.

These penalties “worsen the families’ living conditions and punish the
detainee and his family twice: once by arrest, and the other by seizing
their money,” PCHR said.

What the Israeli government is doing “is a form of arbitrary and unlawful
collective punishment.”
Punishments

This comes as Ben-Gvir called for even more punishments for Palestinian
prisoners.

Ben-Gvir demanded
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-gvir-said-to-order-reduced-shower-time-for-terror-inmates/>
that Israeli prison authorities limit the time that certain Palestinian
prisoners are allowed to use the showers.

Palestinian political prisoners – so-called security prisoners – will only
be allowed to take showers for four minutes at a time, and running water
will only be available for one hour every day.

As part of Israeli prison authorities’ punitive measures
<https://ppsmo.ps/home/news/8569> against Palestinian detainees, they are
serving them stale and frozen bread, conducting frequent raids and searches
of cells and increasing use of solitary confinement.
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