Talk:Death Penalty for Terrorists Law

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See RfC below. Docentation (talk) 23:14, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

The opening section of the article, which states, 'Israel's death penalty law (officially the Death Penalty for Terrorists Law, 2026) prescribes death by hanging as the default sentence for Palestinians convicted by Israeli military courts of terrorism,' presents a problematic characterization. This phrasing appears to imply a specific bias and misrepresents the broader intentions of the law. Wikipedia articles must adhere to a neutral point of view, and this sentence seems to skew the narrative by focusing on one particular perspective, which risks presenting the law in a politically charged light. I urge contributors to re-frame this section to better reflect the law's actual objectives, avoiding language that may inadvertently influence readers' perceptions or suggest a particular political bias. Lothengrun de Spigel (talk) 22:11, 30 March 2026 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lothengrun de Spigel (talk • contribs)

What exactly is the ‘specific bias’ the sentence has? What is the ‘broader intention of the law’ that is ‘misrepresent[ed]’? Not really clear what the NPOV violation is otherwise (so have removed the NPOV template), but do revert if you have a specific concern; ideally, suggest alternative phrasing. (And a reminder that LLM-generated comments are unwelcome and unhelpful, especially when they lack specifics.) Docentation (talk) 22:10, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

The claim of "prescribes death by hanging as the default sentence for Palestinians convicted by Israeli military courts of terrorism" is clearly a statement with political connotations (which violate Wikipedia's neutrality policy), the Palestinian people themselves are not terrorists nor are classified as being terrorists under law, therefore the law is not targeting the people of Palestine, it targets only individuals who have committed terrorism. If a Palestinian individual sees fit to commit terrorism [within Israeli soil] he/she should be prosecuted under the rules and regulations of the Israeli state. Lothengrun de Spigel (talk) 22:16, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

I used an LLM as a means to refine my writing style and therefore clarify my point in this particular case, I do apologize if Wikipedia prohibits using an LLM to refine writing, because I was not aware of this. Lothengrun de Spigel (talk) 22:20, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

No, it’s a factual claim, which may or may not be correct. (In this case, it ignores the hypothetical Jewish terrorist trying to negate the existence of the State of Israel, but I’ve offered a more elaborate formulation below.) Docentation (talk) 22:22, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Just saw the reason in the main article (thus strikethrough above): The actual bill does not label it the default sentence for Palestinians. This seems to contradict most sources.

• Times of Israel: ‘[the law] mandate[s] death by hanging as the default punishment for West Bank residents convicted of deadly terrorist acts by military courts. While judges can opt for life imprisonment under vaguely defined “special circumstances,” the death penalty would otherwise be mandatory….’
• Jerusalem Post: ‘Terrorists from the West Bank, however, would still get the automatic death penalty, barring specific appeals.’
• Ynet: ‘[i]n the West Bank…, the death penalty would be the default punishment, though not an absolute mandatory sentence…[provided there is]…”intent of denying the existence of the State of Israel”’
• ditto the NYT: ‘in practice appli[es] only to Palestinians…because the death penalty could be imposed only for homicide where the intention was to “negate the existence of the State of Israel”’.

Ergo something like the following seems right: ‘prescribes death by hanging as the punishment for terrorist homicide intended to deny or negate "the existence of the State of Israel" [citing Ynet and the NYT], which "in practice appli[es] only to Palestinians…not to Jewish extremists". The law provides for life imprisonment as an alternative to death in "special circumstances". (TOI)’

Docentation (talk) 22:21, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Again, the sources you have generously provided present a misguided and biased perspective of the situation, THE COUNTER-TERRORISM LAW, 5776-2016 provides a clear distinction of what a terrorist is and what a terrorist does, and again if a Palestinian citizen chooses willfully to violate the laws and regulations of the state of Israel, within Israeli soil, they should be prosecuted accordingly based on the legal framework of the state, now we can debate (as citizens) the morality of said law which would lead to a question of international human rights, however since (I think) both of us have no expertise on the the matter of International Law (thus have to rely on experts for judgement), this is no place for opinions, full stop. Clearly there is a shared motivation which the authors of the articles you provided share, this in itself makes their claims up to question, and by extension make me question you for providing them as evidence for Palestinian institutional persecution. The Israeli state is not a banana republic wherein certain laws apply to certain citizens, the law is universal and would certainly apply also to Jewish individuals if they seek to willfully violate it. Lothengrun de Spigel (talk) 22:39, 30 March 2026 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lothengrun de Spigel (talk • contribs) 22:37, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Read WP:OR and WP:PSTS. Even if you are right about the joint reading of the counter-terrorism law and death penalty laws, you need to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, which is what you are doing here. In any case, there is no evidence that there is consensus that there is a shared motivation which the authors of the articles [I] provided share; the JPost, TOI, and Ynet are pretty unlikely to have some shared anti-Israeli bias (see their entries on WP:RSP. If you can link to reliable sources (i.e. not primary legislation) claiming that the law would in practice apply to Jewish Israelis, you are welcome to include such sources. Even if you are sure something is true, it must have been published in a reliable source before you can add it (WP:V). In any case, this is about a putative factual claim, namely that the law will apply in practice to Palestinians only; Wikipedia is not a WP:forum to debate whether the Israeli state is…a banana republic or discuss the morality of said law. Docentation (talk) 22:46, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Anyway, we don’t seem to be reaching agreement, so will raise an RfC below. Docentation (talk) 22:51, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

 Done Lothengrun de Spigel (talk) 17:03, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Is there anywhere online to see how the vote broke down; who voted for and against this and the parties? Criticalthinker (talk) 00:41, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

Knesset website probably has it (but it’s inaccessible in many areas outside Israel). JPost has the following information: vote was 68–42 (meaning 110/120 MKs voted)

• Lapid (and the rest of Yesh Atid?=24) against,
• Golan (and rest of HaDemokratim?=4) against,
• Gantz (and rest of B&W?=8) against,
• Arab parties (5+3+2+1=11) against

which would make 47 MKs, so presumably it’s some combination of these against, everyone in the coalition+Noam+UTJ+Yisrael Beitenu for, modulo absentees. Maybe worth including stances of party leaders in the article, but I don’t think my speculation above counts as verifiable, even though it’s probably correct. Docentation (talk) 00:48, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

The Knesset votes database is currently inaccessible from my location in Germany. According to ToI, the supporting parties were Likud, Otzma Yehudit, Yisrael Beytenu, Shas, and Degel HaTorah, while opposition came from Yesh Atid, Democrats, Hadash–Ta’al, and Agudat Yisrael. Unfortunately they do not provide an exact numerical breakdown by party. Paprikaiser (talk) 01:58, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

Ah, ignore my last post. Here is the list. I guess Blue and White is now called "National Unity."--Criticalthinker (talk) 04:44, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Great find! Unfortunately WP:ANADOLU is not a great source. I haven't been able to find alternatives so far. Paprikaiser (talk) 05:33, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

https://main.knesset.gov.il/Activity/plenum/Votes/Pages/vote.aspx?voteId=45858 - Here is the breakdown per the Knesset's website. The result can also be found in the transcript of the parliamentary session (https://main.knesset.gov.il/apps/smartprotocol/session/2242127/4940140). Totalstgamer (talk) 10:44, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

The Knesset website is inaccessible in several countries outside Israel (possibly all). Docentation (talk) 19:09, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

@Totalstgamer could you try archiving those pages? That may allow access for people outside Israel. Paprikaiser (talk) 22:14, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

I just tried. This unfortunately doesn't work. Either someone uses a VPN or I'll provide the voting record (I can be reached on the wikimedia discord server and via email) Totalstgamer (talk) 19:40, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Who was the abstention? It seems like that'd be worth a note in the article since it was apparently one member. Perhaps, too, the names of the MKs (grouped by party) who were absent for the vote. Criticalthinker (talk) 08:57, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Again @Totalstgamer, who was the abstention? Criticalthinker (talk) 06:58, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Meir Porush of United Torah Judaism. Totalstgamer (talk) 10:03, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

@Totalstgamer, thank you. If you can add that information to the article in the last paragraph of the "Legislative history" section with a source, that'd be great. Given that he was the only abstention, it's newsworthy and worth a note. Criticalthinker (talk) 21:23, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Could we get a clarification? Here Tobianski is called a spy, but he was exonerated of all charges a year after his execution. "suspected spy" or "suspected (and later exonerated) spy" would be more honest Mihai Stefan Corvine (talk) 13:12, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

I removed “spy”. If people want to know more about him they can click through to his article Rainsage (talk) 17:58, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure the text "capital punishment in Israel under existing laws" is informative in the case of Tobianski. He was tried and executed by an ad hoc court martial (i.e. which law was it?), which is quite different from Eichmann's example. Zero^talk 07:21, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

I don’t really have an opinion either way. the source (NYT) states: “Israel has imposed the existing death penalty only twice in its history. Meir Tobianski, an Israeli Army officer accused of spying, was executed in 1948 — only to be publicly exonerated after his killing.” Rainsage (talk) 21:23, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, "the existing death penalty" seems to imply a penalty under the same law, which is definitively false (E was executed under a law that didn't exist yet when T was executed). But maybe that's reading it too strictly and I don't intend to pursue it. Zero^talk 07:17, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

The lead says that Jews are excluded from the law, but some sources say Israelis are exluded, which in theory would include Arab citizens of Israel and other non-Jewish citizens. Which one is it? DannyC55 (Talk ★ Contributions) 21:32, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

The BBC, Times of Israel, and New York Times all describe that this is a law that applies to "Palestinians and Jewish and Palestinian Arab Israeli citizens", and "the chances that it would be applied to Jewish Israelis ... are minimal". The subset being named is Jewish Israeli citizens, and they are only excluded in that they are unlikely to have this law applied to them. -- Reconrabbit 14:35, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Here is the entire paragraph from the NYT article:

The legislation makes death by hanging the default sentence in Israeli military courts for Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks. Israeli citizens — both Jewish and Palestinian Arab — could also face the death penalty for killings intended to “negate the existence of the State of Israel.” Experts say, however, the chances that it would be applied to Jewish Israelis for attacks against Palestinians are minimal.

I am removing the comments from temporary accounts here as they have been notified of the contentious topic in this area and are not permitted to discuss this on this talk page, per WP:ECR. -- Reconrabbit 15:15, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

The TOI explains this well. There are actually two exclusions.

1. All Israelis (whether Arab or Jewish) are in practice mostly excluded from military jurisdiction in the West Bank. (I just remembered that in fact some Palestinian citizens of Israel are prosecuted in military courts, but as of 2014, no Jewish citizens of Israel had been, as the ACRI documents at pp 37–39.)
2. In the Israeli civilian courts, both Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel can be tried (in addition to anyone else). But this is where the proviso arises: the death penalty ‘applies only to those who “intentionally cause the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel” — a definition designed to exclude Jewish terrorists’ .

So a Palestinian citizen of Israel who e.g. joins Hamas and blows up an IDF convoy is liable to conviction on these grounds, but a Jewish terrorist who kills a Palestinian citizen of Israel resident in Jaffa (so the argument goes) isn’t. Obviously, theoretically, a Jewish Israeli could join Hamas or something, so could theoretically also be hanged. But this is why we have the in practice proviso, following most of the sources (both primary and secondary) with that qualification.

This is explained in more detail after the lede, but (as the person who wrote it) I thought it was probably clearer not to explain these details in the lede. Docentation (talk) 20:24, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

I was mildly surprised that I only found columns in support of the law in the Jerusalem Post and JNS, given the state of Israeli public opinion, but I haven’t looked in Hebrew. I think the analytic balance in the article is entirely wp:due (not many RS are reporting arguments defending the law) but would welcome any Hebrew-language sources containing evidence of support for the law for completeness in § Reactions, at least as an indication of the state of public opinion. Docentation (talk) 20:43, 2 April 2026 (UTC)