During the Gaza war, many Israeli politicians wore small yellow pins on their lapels. The most common, also worn by ambassadors, was a yellow ribbon to show solidarity with hostages held in the enclave and press for their release.
But some members of the Israeli government, most notably far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, wore a yellow noose pin. From a distance, it looked similar to the ribbon pin, but its message was very different. It was worn to show support for legislation to impose the death penalty on those convicted of terrorism – with the plan widely viewed as discriminatory against Palestinians.
The law was passed on Monday, sparking jubilation among its supporters. “From now on, every mother in Judea and Samaria will know that if her son goes out to murder, his sentence is the gallows,” Mr Ben-Gvir said in a post on X, referring to the occupied West Bank with a biblical term used in Israel.
Israel holds 9,500 Palestinians without charge in “administrative detention”. They are now all at risk of the death penalty if a court finds them guilty of killing an Israeli.
Mr Ben-Gvir said last year that the pins sent “a clear message that terrorists are deserving of death”. The support that idea has gained since then is yet another sign that Israel is becoming increasingly far right, a trend that has concerned many of its traditional allies. The country already faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over the Gaza war, while settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has soared.
Israeli politicians have shown support for the death penalty law in other ways. Limor Son Har Melech, a Knesset member from Mr Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party, posted a video of herself with a noose in one hand and a fake lethal injection in the other, during the Jewish holiday of Purim in early March. She also wore the pin.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s by injection, poison, or by rope, what’s important is a death penalty for terrorists law,” she said in the video.
Israeli peace activist Itamar Greenberg told The National that the pin is a sign that extremists have been emboldened. “Israel has been executing Palestinians since the beginning of the state. These pins are a symbol that they are not afraid to hide it any more, that they are proud,” he said.
“This law doesn’t really change much. Palestinian prisoners are already being tortured and killed in prisons.”
Uri Weltmann, a spokesman for equal rights activist group Standing Together, said Mr Ben-Gvir and his party "subscribe to a supremacist ideology that fetishises mass murder". Mr Weltmann added that "instead of a government of death that fantasises about gallows, we deserve leaders who value life".
