GERMANY PERSPECTIVE

Deutsche Welle produces the most detailed article in the corpus: a long-form piece that traces the complete history of capital punishment in Israel since the British Mandate. The article recalls that only two men have been executed in Israeli history — Meir Tobianski in 1948 (falsely accused of espionage, posthumously exonerated) and Adolf Eichmann in 1962. DW details the mechanics of the law: in military courts, the death penalty is the default sentence, convertible to life imprisonment only for "special reasons". A simple majority suffices, and appeals processes are "extremely limited". Tagesschau cites B'Tselem: "This law will institutionalize the execution of Palestinians. Today, Israel is killing Palestinians in record numbers — in Gaza, in the West Bank, and in its prison system." Berlin has officially declared its rejection of capital punishment and believes the law will apply "most likely exclusively to Palestinians". German coverage is the most explicitly universalist — capital punishment is treated there as a moral absolute, not as a political tool to be evaluated case by case. This is no accident: Germany abolished it in its Basic Law of 1949, in direct reaction to Nazism. On a subject touching Israel, this conviction collides head-on with German historical guilt — a dilemma that the media manage by criticizing the law without criticizing the country. DW German produces a separate article noting that a lawsuit has been filed against the law, and a third older article on the global distribution of capital punishment — a universalist framing that situates Israel in a global panorama. Germany is also the only European country explicitly targeted by Ben-Gvir in his pre-vote tirade: "Of course you don't like it — you don't like it when Israel defends itself." This direct address puts Berlin in an impossible position: responding means entering into a controversy with a far-right minister, remaining silent means accepting the accusation.