Will Israel issue and carry out a death sentence by the end of 2024?
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18
Ṁ4567
Jan 1
1.5%
chance

Market will resolve YES if a death penalty is issued and carried out before the end of 2024.

Context: Capital punishment has only been imposed twice in the history of the state of Israel, the last execution being that of SS officer Adolf Eichmann (in 1962). Prosecutors have as of yet not sought the death penalty for a convicted terrorist.

Capital Punishment in Israel (Wikipedia)

"Minister asks to prosecute Hamas terrorists as Nazis, opening up death penalty" (Times of Israel, 10/24/23)

I welcome any questions, comments, or discussion.

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To clarify, this market requires an Israeli court, tribunal, or other institution to formally accuse someone of a crime, to at least nominally follow internal rules to determine guilt or innocence, find the accused guilty of a crime, at least nominally follow its own rules to determine punishment, then sentence someone to execution and at least nominally follow their rules in executing the accused?

An IDF member deciding that someone was a terrorist and shooting them, without the trappings of being an “official military tribunal” and at least nominally following the rules of a military tribunal, would not qualify?

I don’t want to open the floodgates of whether proper procedures were completely followed; even if outside observers agree that “a kangaroo court” was convened, they would agree that a court was convened that claimed to be following proper procedure; I just want to clarify whether if IDF members “summarily executed” (disjoint from all legal war conduct) one or more people for whatever reason it would count as capital punishment.

predicts YES

@DanPowell Thanks for the comment. To clarify, market will not count an instance of extrajudicial execution as “capital punishment”. It needs to be an Israeli court in which there is some formal procedure of accusation, determining guilt, sentencing, and execution. The fairness or propriety of the procedures are irrelevant with respect to this market (a “kangaroo court” would count). A military tribunal—given it meets these broad requirements—should count as well.

@AmHa Israel does have the death penalty for genocide but doesn't allow for it to be determined by a military tribunal, so I'm principle this shouldn't come up.

predicts YES

@ShakedKoplewitz (note BTW that Israel has the death penalty for genocide in general, as a separate law from the one about Nazis)

predicts NO

Very remotely possible IMO. For this to happen, these things need to occur:

A. A single person is known by everyone to be the single responsible for the 7/10 massacre.

B. IDF captures this person alive.

C. Public sentiment remains highly elevated and angry enough to overcome international pushbacks, moral considerations and possible retaliation from Hamas/Hezbollah.

D. The (still) independent legal system plays along.

Much lower than 50%

predicts YES

@0482 Good breakdown of conditional events for this market. I would still assign pretty high probabilities for A,B, and even C. D is a more open question for me. I would add E. Process of trial, conviction, sentencing, and execution could exceed market’s deadline. Last thing: if you think market is mispriced at 50%, it’s a good opportunity to bid it down at a discount!

predicts YES

@0482 A is false, as I understand it. It wouldn't require that single person to be uniquely responsible (just like Eichmann wasn't uniquely responsible for the Holocaust), just a major player (I don't know the exact legal standard for this).

B is also not that strong - Israel captured quite a lot of terrorists alive (both during the attacks - where there's obviously overwhelming evidence for what they took part in - and during the current action, in which evidence might be more of an issue).

C seems like a non-issue - Israeli sentiment isn't going to be merciful towards people provably responsible for the 10/7 attacks and I don't see much international pushback for their rights either.

D also seems something of a nonproblem - I'm not sure what the exact standard in A is but, assuming it's met, the legal system would only have to comply with the law as written in a reasonably central example of it.

Overall I think the main barriers (which still make this unlikely but not impossible) are (a) whether the prosecution office actually seeks this out for anyone (they have considered it for people caught during the initial attack, but might not want to risk a novel approach like that), and (b) even if they did, a year is probably a pretty short time for prep+trial+execution to all go through.