A law without mercy by Mary Long

There are moments when a law reveals more than its text, when it exposes a nation’s anxieties, its power structures and its moral boundaries. The Israeli parliament’s recent passage of legislation mandating the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of deadly terrorist acts in military courts is one such moment. It is not merely a legal development; it is a statement of intent and a troubling one.

At first glance, the justification appears straightforward, deterrence. Proponents argue that harsher penalties will discourage acts of violence. But this logic rests on a fragile foundation. Decades of research on capital punishment have failed to establish it as a uniquely effective deterrent. Violence born of desperation, ideology, or cycles of retaliation is rarely curbed by the threat of death. Instead, such measures risk deepening the very grievances they claim to address.

What distinguishes this law, however, is not just its severity but its asymmetry. It operates within a dual legal system in which Palestinians are tried in military courts, while Israeli citizens, Jewish or Arab, are generally subject to civilian courts. The new measure, in practice, applies overwhelmingly to Palestinians. Its language may gesture toward neutrality, but its implementation tells a different story. Laws do not exist in a vacuum; they inherit the inequalities of the systems in which they function.

The removal of the right to appeal is particularly stark. Appeals are not procedural luxuries; they are safeguards against error, bias, and the irreversible consequences of flawed judgments. To eliminate that safeguard in cases involving the ultimate punishment is to accept, implicitly, that mistakes are tolerable, even when they cannot be undone. In any justice system, that is a perilous position.

Israeli civil- and human-rights groups have described the law as discriminatory, and it is difficult to dismiss that characterization. When a law disproportionately targets one population while leaving another effectively untouched, the question is not simply whether it is legal, but whether it is just. The distinction matters. Legality can be engineered; justice must be earned.

There is also a broader political dimension. Policies like this do not emerge in isolation; they are shaped by and in turn reinforce a climate of fear and polarization. In such an environment, toughness becomes a political currency. Leaders demonstrate resolve through severity and dissent is often framed as weakness. Yet history suggests that measures perceived as collective punishment tend to entrench divisions rather than resolve them.

One might argue that states have the right, even the obligation, to defend their citizens against violence. That is undoubtedly true. But the means of that defense are not morally neutral. A system that appears to assign different values to different lives risks undermining the very principles it seeks to protect. Security achieved at the expense of equality is a precarious kind of security.

What makes this law particularly unsettling is its permanence. Temporary measures enacted in moments of crisis have a way of becoming fixtures. Once established, they reshape expectations and normalize what might once have seemed unthinkable. The danger is not only in what the law does today, but in what it makes possible tomorrow.

In the end, the question is not simply whether this policy will deter violence. It is whether it will bring the region any closer to a sustainable peace. Justice systems that are perceived as fair can serve as foundations for stability. Those seen as discriminatory often do the opposite. A law without mercy may project strength, but it risks eroding the very legitimacy on which lasting security depends.