Seven Jewish groups sent the following letter to the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong on April 7 demanding that Australia cut ties with Israel following the Knesset’s new death penalty law.
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Dear Prime Minister Albanese and Minister Wong,
As Jewish Australians, we urge you to consider our views regarding the new death penalty law that passed through the Israeli Knesset on March 31.
This law authorises military courts in the Occupied West Bank to impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of deliberate killings defined as terrorist acts under Israel’s discriminatory counter-terrorism law.
It removes procedural safeguards; the right of appeal, of pardons, of meaningful judicial discretion and demands that executions be carried out within 90 days of sentencing. The law would only apply to Israelis convicted of murder if their attacks were aimed at “ending Israel’s existence”.
This law further cements Israeli status as a pariah state and makes a travesty of Jewish legal and ethical tradition, best summed up by the statement of 12th century Jewish rabbi Maimonides — that it is far preferable to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent person to death (Book of Commandments, Negative Commandment #290).
It is so blatantly discriminatory that even three of the major Australian Zionist organisations, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) and the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) have felt compelled to condemn it.
It is a rare occasion when we agree with these Zionist organisations, but this is where our agreement begins and ends.
We see the law as inextricably linked to and a continuation of Israel governing as an apartheid ethnostate, that ultimately seeks to erase Palestine and the Palestinian people once and for all.
There have been many reports — most recently those prepared by B’Tselem (the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) that reflect on the abuse and inhuman treatment of Palestinians held in Israeli custody since 7 October 2023. During that time, at least 87 Palestinian detainees have been killed in prisons that are now routinely described as torture camps.
A recent report issued by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese calculates that since October 2023 around 18,500 Palestinians have been detained across the occupied Palestinian territory including at least 1500 children. Thousands remain in detention without charge or trial and many have been horrifically abused and forcibly disappeared.
Francesca Albanese warns that this system — one that has long been used to dominate and humiliate Palestinian people — has now hardened into state doctrine.
This law, passed with much fanfare and joyfully celebrated by right-wing Knesset members with champagne, comes at a time of heightened Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank. While the world has focused on the Israel/United States war on Iran, armed Israeli militias have carried out more than 7300 violations against Palestinians in the West Bank. These attacks have become ever more savage.
This new death penalty tells Palestinians, not just that they have no rights but that they have no future.
It is not enough that our government express concern about Israel’s systematic torture and now lawful death by hanging of Palestinians, it must act to sanction what we see as an expression of emerging fascism in Israel.
We demand that this government end all diplomatic and military ties with Israel.
Signed:
Jews for Palestine WA
Jews Against the Occupation ‘48
Jewish Advocates for Understanding Antisemitism
Loud Jew Collective
Jews for Justice
Jewish Voices of Inner Sydney
Jews For a Free Palestine