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Death Penalty for Arabs Only

>> Read the full Position Paper in PDF

On 10 November 2025, two bills titled “Death Penalty for Terrorists” passed their first reading in the Knesset. The bills seek to enshrine in law the death penalty as a mandatory punishment for murder committed out of a racist motive, but only when the victim is Jewish. They thus establish a hierarchy in the offense of murder and determine that Jewish lives are dearer.

The death penalty is immoral by definition. Through the act of execution, the state admits that there are people who are not worthy of living. However, the right to life applies to all human beings, and the deliberate killing of a person, even of someone who has committed the most heinous attack on fellow human beings or when coming at the end of a legal process, is a stark expression of contempt for the value of life and for human dignity.

International law does not absolutely ban the death penalty, but the restrictions placed on its imposition and the interpretation of its provisions render its use extremely rare to nearly nonexistent. Abolishing the death penalty has become an unequivocal worldwide trend, and today 75% of countries have ceased using it. Almost all governments in countries where it still exists do not identify as democratic.

Not only do the bills seeks a mandatory death penalty, but they impose it on defendants not because of their responsibility for the deed, but due to the national identity of both the perpetrator and the victim. A historical examination of death penalty legislation around the world shows that embedding categories of nationality and race into criminal law is extremely rare. The clearest, almost singular example of legislation basing criminal liability on the identity of the defendant rather than on the severity of the deed is Nazi Germany. The Slave Codes enacted in the southern United States in the 18th and 19th centuries are yet another example of such legislation.

If passed, these bills would turn an immoral act into binding law. The death penalty would become a routine practice. Prosecutors would urge the courts to impose it, judges would be obligated to order the killing of human beings, and a new profession would be born in Israel: executioner.

Zulat’s position is that these racist bills, which are among the most despicable ever submitted to the Knesset, should be rejected outright and their very discussion should be denounced.

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Dr. Maha Sabbah Karkabi

 

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Tel Aviv University (2015), a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Gender Studies, SOAS, University of London (2015-2016), a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology at Tel Aviv University (2016-2017), and a postdoctoral fellowship Ph.D. at the Humphrey Institute for Social Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2018-2020).
Dr. Maha Karbahi’s areas of interest focus on the connection between social change, family behavior, and gender inequality in societies in the process of change and specifically in Palestinian Arab society in Israel. Her research draws attention to the study of family life and employment, using a combined “ethnic lens” and “gender lens” and paying attention to the perspective of Palestinian Arab women, a group characterized by intersections between multiple marginal locations, which over the years has remained hidden from the research eye. Dr. Karkabi-Sabah’s research is published in professional journals and chapters in scientific books that are considered pioneers in family research, work, and gender equality.

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Prof. Frances Raday

Professor Emeritus in the Lieberman Chair in Labor Law, in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University and serves as a full professor in the College of Management’s academic track, where she also serves as chair of the graduate program and as honorary president of the Concord Center for International Law Absorption. Radai was a member of a working group of the UN Human Rights Council on discrimination against women. In addition, she is a prominent and feminist human rights activist.

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Dr. Rawia Aburabia 

Faculty member of Sapir Academic College’s School of Law, received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research deals with the interface between law, gender, minorities, and human rights. Has published in leading journals on the subject of the matrimonial laws pertaining to Muslim women in Israel. Her book Under the Law, Outside Justice: Polygamy, Gendered Citizenship, and Colonialism in Israeli Law is expected to be published as part of the Gender Series of Kibbutz Meuhad Publishing House.

Dr. Aburabia has extensive experience in international human rights and public law. She has worked as a jurist for the Association for Civil Right and has been invited as a specialist to address such international forums as the United Nations and the European Parliament on the subject of indigenous communities and minority rights. She has interned with Human Rights Watch in Washington DC, and has been a member of the executive board of Amnesty International. In 2018, she was selected by the magazine Globes as one of the 40 most promising young persons in Israel under the age of 40.

 

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Ron Kessler

With over two decades of experience in the field of digital content, Ron has participated in numerous political and social campaigns. He helped run the digital activity of senior public officials, and worked in various NGOs. Ron is a fundamentally optimistic man, who believes that Israel can be changed and so can people. Lives in Tel Aviv.