A Law, Not a Metaphor

Israel has passed a law introducing a mandatory death penalty for certain terrorism offences, to be applied in military courts and, in principle, carried out within 90 days. That is the story. It is serious enough on its own without anyone reaching for historical fancy dress five seconds later.

Yet almost immediately the conversation drifts. Someone declares it proof of some grand historical parallel, someone else counters with a different one, and before long we are arguing about the 1940s instead of the rather pressing question of what has just been passed by the Knesset.

The fallback comparison tends to be the French Resistance, which has a comforting air of moral clarity about it. Brave resistance, clear villains, tidy conclusions. The sort of thing that makes a messy present feel more manageable.

But it only works if you ignore most of the detail. The French Resistance largely targeted infrastructure and occupying forces. Civilian attacks were contentious then and remain so now. Modern conflicts are not nearly so obliging. Rockets into towns, bombings, reprisals, and the familiar cycle that follows. One side calls it resistance, the other calls it terrorism, and both can produce examples that complicate the story.

Meanwhile, the law itself is doing its quiet, inconvenient work. It is framed around specific offences, not ethnicity written into statute. But it operates in a system where those prosecuted are overwhelmingly Palestinian, which is where the charge of discrimination arises. It has been passed, but it will be challenged. And it marks a sharp break from a country that has, in practice, avoided using the death penalty for decades.

Those are the points that matter. Capital punishment, due process, the structure of military courts, and whether the law will be applied evenly or not. You can make a strong case on any of those without borrowing a narrative from another time.

Because once you drop the analogies, you are left with the harder question. Not who this reminds you of, but whether it is justifiable, how it will be used, and who will actually end up on the receiving end.

Less dramatic, perhaps. But rather more to the point.