Israeli coalition rift deepens as ultra-Orthodox leader rejects terrorist death penalty

The law would allow the death penalty to be imposed by majority vote and eliminate any possibility of mitigation once a final sentence has been issued.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah faction of the Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, ordered his lawmakers to vote against a government-backed bill that would impose the death penalty on terrorists who kill Israelis.

The move has brought him into open conflict with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is pushing the legislation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s support.

Ben-Gvir warned that his Otzma Yehudit party would stop voting with the coalition if the bill does not pass its first reading this week.

Despite Degel HaTorah’s stance, the measure could still advance with backing from some opposition members.

A spokesman for Lando said the rabbi believes the policy “would endanger Jewish lives because if Arabs around the world see that we are doing such a thing, it could lead to bloodshed.”

The Orthodox parties UTJ and Shas are already partially boycotting coalition votes to pressure Netanyahu into passing legislation that would grant broad military draft exemptions to yeshiva students.

The Knesset’s national security committee recently approved the advancement of a controversial bill that would allow the death penalty for terrorists.

Government Coordinator for Hostages and Missing Persons Brig. Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch, who previously opposed the legislation, told the committee that his position has shifted following the return of all the living hostages from Gaza.

The bill’s explanatory notes stipulate that terrorists convicted of murder motivated by racism or hostility toward the public — and committed with the aim of harming the State of Israel — would receive a mandatory death sentence.

The law would allow the death penalty to be imposed by majority vote and eliminate any possibility of mitigation once a final sentence has been issued.

The only individual ever executed by Israel was Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi architect of the Holocaust. He was hanged in 1962, and his ashes were scattered at sea after he was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.

An Israeli court sentenced John Demjanjuk to death in 1988 for crimes against humanity committed while working at various concentration camps. However, Israel’s Supreme Court overturned the sentence in 1993. Israel eventually extradited Demjanjuk, who was later convicted in Germany as an accessory to the murder of more than 28,000 Jews at the Sobibor death camp.

Demjanjuk died in Germany while appealing that conviction.