The United States said on Monday it respected Israel\u2019s right to set its own laws after its parliament introduced the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of killings, a move sharply criticised by European nations and rights groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States respects Israel\u2019s sovereign right to determine its own laws and penalties for individuals convicted of terrorism,\u201d a State Department spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe trust that any such measures will be carried out with a fair trial and respect for all applicable fair trial guarantees and protections.\u201d<\/p>\n
The United States is the only Nato country that still practices capital punishment. It has long been the key diplomatic and military supporter of Israel.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the Israeli parliament\u2019s approval of the bill, Britain, France, Germany and Italy on Sunday expressed \u201cdeep concern\u201d and said the move risked \u201cundermining Israel\u2019s commitments with regards to democratic principles\u201d.<\/p>\n
The legislation makes the death penalty the default punishment for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank found guilty of intentionally carrying out deadly attacks deemed \u201cacts of terrorism\u201d by an Israeli military court.<\/p>\n
The legislation appears to conflict with Israel\u2019s Basic Laws, which prohibit arbitrary discrimination, and shortly after it was passed, a leading human rights group announced that it had filed a petition with the Supreme Court demanding the legislation\u2019s annulment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law creates two parallel tracks, both designed to apply to Palestinians,\u201d the Association for Civil Rights in Israel said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn military courts, which have jurisdiction over West Bank Palestinians, it establishes a near-mandatory death sentence,\u201d the rights group said.<\/p>\n
Israel has not carried out a judicial execution since 1962, when it hanged Nazi Adolf Eichmann, a key perpetrator of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States said on Monday it respected Israel\u2019s right to set its own laws after its parliament introduced the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of killings, a move sharply criticised by European nations and rights groups. \u201cThe United States respects Israel\u2019s sovereign right to determine its own laws and penalties for individuals convicted of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17273,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17271\/revisions\/17273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}