Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, walked into the country's parliament, the Knesset, on Monday wearing a small metal noose on his lapel. It was a fitting image for a government that has made contempt for international norms its defining characteristic.
In May 2024, Israel's UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan stood at the General Assembly podium and fed a replica of the UN Charter through a paper shredder — a protest against a vote on Palestinian rights. Four months later, Prime Minister Netanyahu returned to the same podium and called the United Nations an "antisemitic swamp" and a "contemptuous farce." Scores of diplomats walked out as he spoke.
Defying international pressure, the Knesset on Monday passed legislation making death by hanging the default sentence in Israeli military courts for Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis. The law is structured so that it cannot be applied to Jewish extremists convicted of similar crimes. The distinction is not incidental. It is architectural.
Palestinians in the West Bank are tried in military courts with a conviction rate of over 99 percent. Israeli settlers who commit violence against Palestinians are tried in civilian courts, where judges retain far greater discretion. Under the new law, execution must be carried out within 90 days of sentencing. There is no right of appeal.
That contempt has not been limited to symbolic gestures and invectives. Israel's own ministries and military officials have repeatedly warned that the death penalty bill could breach international law and expose Israeli commanders to arrest warrants abroad. Ben-Gvir dismissed those concerns. He described hanging as "one of the options" for carrying out executions, adding that alternatives could include the electric chair or what he called "euthanasia." He said doctors had volunteered to participate, telling him: "Just tell us when."
Today, the State of Israel has taken a historic and necessary step in the global fight against terrorism.
The passage of the law allowing for the death penalty for terrorists who commit premeditated, nationalistically motivated acts of murder sends a clear message: those who… pic.twitter.com/5al3vgDU6j
The United Nations — the institution that played a pivotal role in the creation of the state of Israel — has called the death penalty law a violation of international law. The question is not whether Israel is listening. It simply is not.
Audacity of this scale does not come from nowhere. It comes from the certain knowledge that nothing will follow. Impunity is not just the absence of consequences. It is the confident expectation that there will be none — and that those who seek to enforce international law will face reprisal for the attempt. Consider the Trump administration's sanctions on ICC judges — punished for issuing arrest warrants against Israeli leaders for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The foreign ministers of Germany, France, Britain, Australia and Italy had urged Israel to abandon the bill before the vote, calling it "de facto discriminatory." Israel passed it anyway — 62 to 48. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel immediately filed a petition with the Supreme Court, calling the law "discriminatory by design." The international community objected. Israel noted the objection and ignored it.
Ben-Gvir campaigned for this law for years, making it a condition of his party's participation in Netanyahu's coalition. On Monday, Netanyahu came to the Knesset in person to cast his vote in favour of the bill. After the result was announced, Ben-Gvir celebrated with champagne, calling it a day of justice.
Israel calls itself the only democracy in the Middle East. Democracy is not only about elections being held. It is also how a state values equality before the law. A state that mandates death for one people and exempts another has not failed that standard quietly or accidentally. It has written the failure into statute — and called it justice.
The last person Israel executed by hanging was Adolf Eichmann in 1962 — a Nazi war criminal. That is the only precedent for the noose in Israeli legal history. Ben-Gvir wore it on his lapel as a badge of pride. The symbolism was not accidental. It was the point.
As for the international community: condemnation without consequence is not opposition. It is permission. And when discrimination becomes statute, silence becomes complicity.
