Summary of this article
Israel’s proposed death penalty expansion raises questions beyond law—about power, control, and lived reality
Yahya Al Hamarna traces how legal measures are experienced across generations of Palestinians
The column argues that in this context, law is never symbolic—it shapes both material conditions and psychological landscapes
At a time when Israel has moved to expand the use of the death penalty, particularly in cases involving Palestinians, the proposed legislation has triggered sharp legal, political, and ethical debates. Critics argue that the move must be understood not as an isolated policy decision, but within the wider framework of occupation, military law, and longstanding asymmetries in justice.
In this context, Palestinian writer Yahya Al Hamarna, a refugee, researcher in Political Science and International Relations, and a keen observer of law under occupation, responds to the bill. His reflection moves beyond the language of legislation to examine how law is experienced, remembered, and lived across generations of Palestinians.
At the moment a bill expanding the use of the death penalty is introduced, it cannot be read as a purely technical or isolated legal measure. For Palestinians, law does not begin with its text, but with its context. From this perspective, this bill appears less as a discrete policy shift and more as another step in a long trajectory that has continually redefined the relationship between law, power, and Palestinian life itself.
For some observers, this bill may seem largely symbolic—a political gesture aimed at a domestic audience, reflecting a hardened public mood. Yet in the Palestinian context, there is no such thing as “innocent symbolism.” Every legal measure carries the potential to become materially consequential. The line between symbolic and practical is not easily drawn when law has historically shaped lived realities so directly.
This bill cannot be separated from a broader legal and administrative framework that has structured Palestinian life for decades: emergency regulations, administrative detention, and military court systems. These are not isolated developments but part of an accumulated architecture of governance. In this sense, the death penalty bill appears as a continuation of an existing trajectory rather than a rupture from it.
Viewed through an intergenerational lens, the forms of control may shift, but their underlying logic persists.
My grandparents’ generation lived through the Nakba, marked by displacement and the loss of home. My parents’ generation came of age under occupation, experiencing the management of everyday life through military authority. My own generation navigates a more complex system, where legal, political, and technological mechanisms intersect.
Despite these differences, there is a shared sense of continuity: what we are witnessing today does not stand apart from the past but evolves from it every day. Beyond legal debates, the bill generates a deep sense of anxiety within Palestinian communities. For older generations, it may evoke historical memories of vulnerability and insecurity. For younger people, it reinforces a perception of narrowing horizons, where the law itself may function less as protection and more as an additional instrument of pressure.
Even prior to implementation, such legislation carries significant psychological weight. Codifying the possibility of execution raises fundamental questions about how Palestinian life is valued within the legal system. Law, in this context, does not merely regulate—it communicates. And sometimes, that message is more powerful than enforcement itself.
From a human rights perspective, the bill raises serious concerns regarding its compatibility with international legal standards, particularly given longstanding criticisms of military judicial systems and due process inequalities. At the same time, Palestinians confront a complex reality in which mechanisms of international accountability remain limited, reinforcing a broader sense of legal asymmetry.
I do not see this moment as a complete break, but rather as an intensification—a continuation moving toward greater explicitness. It is not entirely new, yet it is not ordinary. It brings into sharper focus dynamics that have long been present, making what was once implicit more visible, and what was once potential more imminent.
Ultimately, this bill cannot be understood in isolation from the broader Palestinian experience—one in which law is embedded in daily life, where politics and existence are inseparable, and where memory continuously informs the present. And yet, despite all of this, Palestinian voices persist not only as witnesses to these transformations, but as agents striving to redefine justice, meaning, and the possibility of a different future.
