The Death Penalty Is State Terror, and Another Blow to the Two State Solution
Zehava Galon — June 22, 2026
Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent NJN's views and policy positions.
Over the past three years, the Israeli government has been leading a regime coup by dismantling judicial guardrails, destroying the free press, violating human rights, and advancing legislation that undermines the foundations of democratic rule. The Kahanist-messianic vision of this coalition is not separate from that coup but rather is being realized through it. Its purpose is to entrench a policy of apartheid and annexation in the West Bank, while removing the cumbersome checks, balances and gatekeepers that might interfere. This vision is being realized through the legitimization of settler Jewish terrorism, the dispossession and transfer of Palestinians, the legalization of illegal outposts, the expansion of construction and roads in the settlements, and annexationist steps that blatantly violate the Oslo Accords and Israel’s international obligations.
The so-called “Death Penalty for Terrorists Law,” enacted as part of the government’s frantic legislative blitz, is the most despicable law the Knesset has ever enacted. It was initiated and advanced by the Kahanist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and it is the crowning achievement of their vile ideological project. The bill determines that death penalty will become the mandatory punishment in cases of murder committed with nationalist motives, but in practice this will apply only when the victim is Jewish. In a paper published by the Zulat Institute in response to the law, we showed that creating a legal hierarchy within the offense of murder, one based not on the act itself, but on the identity of the perpetrator and the victim, has almost no parallels in modern history, except in the darkest of regimes. It is therefore appropriate to define it as a “Death to Arabs Law,” because in practice it will apply only to Palestinians who are residents of the territories and to Palestinian citizens of Israel convicted of terrorism offenses, and not to Jewish terrorists.
When the state kills a person who is already in its custody, who no longer poses a threat, not to prevent imminent harm but to send a political message and instill fear — that is state terror. It unceremoniously disposes of thousands of years of Jewish and universal moral thought and allows a lust for blood, killing and revenge to dictate our conduct as a society. In doing so, it embodies one of the greatest dangers to Israel. From a society that sanctifies and chooses life, and in which the state is a tool for restraining violence, we are regressing to a cruel, vengeful, and primitive society.
During the discussions of the law in the Knesset committee, Zulat’s Executive Director Einat Ovadia also warned that the law, which discriminates between Jews and Arab citizens of the state, includes a legislative amendment concerning the imposition of the death penalty in the military courts in the West Bank. Beyond the blatant annexationism of legislating within the West Bank, as well as the disregard for the Geneva Conventions, it also constitutes institutionalized discrimination based on nationality and strengthens a reality of apartheid. This will further erode Israel’s standing and legitimacy in the international arena.
Because the death penalty law is the realization of the Kahanist-messianic vision, according to which Arab human life is intrinsically of lesser value than Jewish life, it also has direct implications for the chance of reaching a two-state solution. A two-state future cannot be built on a legal order that teaches Israelis that Jewish life and Palestinian life have different value. A reality of two states will be possible only through a struggle for equality: a democratic State of Israel, the state of the Jewish people and of all its citizens, alongside a Palestinian state, the nation-state of the Palestinian people. The hierarchy in the equal value of human life, expressed so repulsively in a law that determines whom the state may execute and whom it may not, undermines the very possibility of repair and reconciliation.
Since October 7, we have seen a dangerous and accelerating process of dehumanization directed at Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and even Palestinian citizens of Israel: the erasure of Palestinian humanity, the normalization of collective punishment, and the treatment of Arab life as inherently suspect, threatening, or expendable. The death penalty law does not create this process, but it deepens it and gives it the force of law. This is precisely the essence of Kahanist ideology: the belief that Palestinians are less fully human, that their lives are worth less, and that different moral and legal standards should apply to them. When that worldview is embedded in Israeli law, politics, and public consciousness, it does more than discriminate. It entrenches a permanent relationship of domination and hostility and moves us further away from any future settlement based on mutual recognition. A two-state future cannot survive in a society being taught, day after day, that the other people’s lives are worth less.
Therefore, our objective is to fight the illegitimate norms that this law establishes before they take hold and test the character of the State of Israel and its commitment to the fundamental values of democracy and human rights, as set out in the Declaration of Independence and in the rulings of the Supreme Court, first and foremost the right to life and human dignity, and the principle of equality before the law.
The Zulat Institute petitioned the High Court of Justice together with Knesset Member Gilad Kariv of The Democrats faction and Rabbis for Human Rights, via attorney Dafna Holtz-Lechner, demanding the removal of this abomination, which stains the Israeli statute book. We believe that confronting the erosion of the value of human life and the Jewish supremacy embodied in this law is essential for rebuilding public support for reconciliation and opposition to the occupation.
I continue to believe that the two-state solution, within the framework of a regional agreement, remains the only practical solution for ending the conflict and achieving peace. But if there is no equality, then a Jewish minority will continue to rule over a Palestinian majority, a reality that will further deepen the erosion of Israel’s legitimacy and endanger Israel’s very existence, certainly as the state of the Jewish people and of all its citizens.
This struggle is not uniquely Israeli; it is part of a broader global confrontation between authoritarian nationalism and the principle of equal human worth. I look at the countries around the world that are now undergoing a wave of neo-fascism, religious extremism, and repressive regimes, but also at how a great human spirit has risen to stand against them — a spirit rooted in the idea that all human beings are born equal. And I believe that no Kahanist, no fascist, no racist, homophobe, or chauvinist will extinguish that spirit.
We are on the precipice of the most important election in Israel’s history, and we are doing everything in our power to ensure the establishment of new government that will set clear moral boundaries: that in a democracy, people are not executed and millions of human beings are not ruled over. A government that will gradually return Israel, step by step, to the family of democratic states.
Zehava Galon, president of Zulat Institute for Equality and Human Rights, served as a Knesset member for 16 years, including six years as chair of Meretz. She is widely recognized for her parliamentary and public activism advancing the struggle for human rights, ending the occupation, and advancing peace.
