The Council of Europe is considering suspending Israel’s observer status at the parliamentary assembly over the country’s new law mandating the death penalty for Palestinians.
The assembly’s president Petra Bayr described the law as a potential “red line” and said that abolishing the death penalty is a “requirement” for having observer status.
The European human rights body, which is not connected to the EU and has 46 member states from across the continent, will consider suspending Israel’s observer status “until there is a decision [against] or until it is clear that the law will not go into force,” Ms Bayr told The Guardian.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a law last month that mandates the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of deadly acts of terror in military courts. Palestinians tried for the same crimes in Israel’s civilian courts also face the death penalty or life imprisonment.
The law is said to protect Jewish Israelis because it applies to murders committed with “the intent to deny the existence of the state of Israel”.
Israel has been an observer of the parliamentary assembly in Strasbourg since 1957. The Council oversees the European Court of Human Rights.
It could be the first time that any country loses observer status, The Guardian reported. Russia was stripped of its voting rights in 2014 over the annexation of Crimea, and was later expelled from the council after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The parliamentary assembly will debate a motion urging Israel to “comply with international humanitarian law” in Gaza, which was signed by a cross party group in June last year highlighting starvation in Gaza and lack of access to medical due to the months-long blockade.
A decision on that motion could be “fast-tracked” to June this year, and this would include a statement on the death penalty, Ms Bayr said.
MPs are also expected to raise concerns about the Knesset’s death penalty during a long-planned vote on capital punishment on Wednesday. The report by Gala Veldhoen, a Dutch left-wing MP “strongly urges Israel to maintain its long-standing abolition of the death penalty for ordinary crimes [and to] refrain from expanding the list of crimes punishable by death in a discriminatory manner”.
Meirav Ben-Ari, an Israeli opposition politician who leads Israel’s delegation to the parliamentary assembly said the death penalty legislation passed in the Knesset was “entirely contrary to my worldview and that of many Israelis”.
“Petitions against this populist law have already been filed with the supreme court, and I am confident the judiciary will strike down many of its provisions, if not the law entirely,” she said.
She said she remained committed to the values that underpinned the Israeli delegation’s partnership with Pace, adding: “It is my sincere hope that the assembly will refrain from taking extreme measures against the Knesset delegation so that together we may continue to advance our shared objectives.”
Israel abolished the death penalty for most crimes in 1954, retaining its use “on paper” for extreme crimes such as genocide or treason. The Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was the last person to be executed in Israel, in 1962.
