Today in the Times of Israel
UN watchdog argues Israel’s death penalty law perpetuates racial discrimination
By AFP and ARIELA KARMEL
Today, 12:10 pm
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Israel’s new death penalty law perpetuates racial discrimination against Palestinians, a United Nations committee argues, urging its immediate repeal.
The highly controversial law passed by the Knesset last monthmandates the death penalty as the default sentence for West Bank Palestinians convicted of carrying out deadly terror attacks in the West Bank.
The law amounts to a grave erosion of human rights, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination says in a statement.
“The new law is a severe blow to human rights, rolling back Israel’s long-standing de facto moratorium on executions since 1962 and expanding the use of the death penalty,” the committee says.
The law is “de facto applicable to Palestinians only” and sets a 90-day deadline for executions once a final judgement is rendered, the committee claims.
Furthermore, it says Israel should ensure that all Palestinian detainees “are guaranteed their rights to equal treatment before the law, security of person, protection against violence or bodily harm, and access to justice.”
The committee also calls on Israel to “end all policies and practices that amount to racial discrimination against and segregation of Palestinians.”
It asserts other countries should “ensure that their resources are not used to enforce or support discriminatory policies and practices against Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
The committee of 18 independent experts monitors adherence to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by its 182 state parties.
Under the convention, which came into force in 1969, countries must eliminate racial discrimination, eradicate practices of segregation and guarantee equality before the law without distinction as to race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin.
Israel ratified the convention in 1979.
Israel’s legal code already contains the death penalty, although it is so rarely invoked that it has only ever been implemented a single time, against Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann (Meir Tobianski was executed as a traitor after a drumhead court martial in 1948, and exonerated a year later).
In contrast, the new measure ensures the regular exercise of capital punishment,
stripping judges of broad discretion in sentencing,
neutering the appeals process and removing several procedural safeguards.
Israeli legal scholars have said the law, promoted by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, contains serious constitutional defects, including violating the right to life, and is discriminatory in that it applies almost exclusively to Palestinians. In addition, experts argue, there is no proof that it would achieve its stated goal of deterring terrorism.
While the law is being challenged in the High Court, legal experts say it is far from certain that the bench will strike it down in its entirety.’