With a pin of a noose hanging by their lapels and champagne, racist ministers this week celebrated at the Knesset, the death penalty law that explicitly targets Palestinians. Hadash MK Ofer Cassif is o%-ne of the most prominent Israeli politicians who spoke out against it. In a video that went viral online following the vote, MK Cassif called it a “genocide law.” It is a label, he told The National, that is more than just a slogan.
Protest against the law passed by the Knesset imposing the death penalty for Palestinians outside the Knesset, in Jerusalem, March 31, 2026. Four activists were arrested and two injured by police officers (Photo: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
“The law itself says that only Palestinians, so-called terrorists, can be tried and executed, and does not apply to Jewish terrorists,” he explained in an interview. In the West Bank, the law refers to residents of the occupied territory, excluding Israeli settlers. But Cassif says it’s important to understand the law within a broader context. “Those who proposed the bill and voted for it have systematically said for years that there’s no such thing as Jewish terrorism, which implies, by definition, that there’s no such thing as a Jewish terrorist.”
Cassif was not surprised that the new law was passed. Israel’s ruling elite and even the Zionist opposition are becoming more chauvinist and resistant to local and international pressure. “In the past four years, when this fascist government was formed … anytime we felt we reached the bottom of the abyss, someone knocked from beneath. I’m furious, I’m enraged but not surprised.”
But all hope is not lost. In fact, Cassif, who is an outspoken critic of Israel’s judicial system, said that there might be a reprieve in the Supreme Court despite his many misgivings about it. Hadash and Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights, filed a claim with the Supreme Court to revise the bill as soon as it was passed into law. “I’m very critical of the Supreme Court because, like all judicial systems in Israel, it is part of the establishment that enabled for many years the war crimes; crimes against humanity; the occupation and the genocide in Gaza,” he said. In Gaza, the Israeli army has killed more than 72,000 people since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023.
Cassif believes that the law is so outrageous that even the most hardline judges will have issues with it. “This law is so unique in its unconstitutional character, I find it difficult to imagine a situation in which the most fascist judges are not revoking at least some of the elements or sections of this law if not the law as a whole.”
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=33340
