Proposed Amendment to Counter-Terrorism Law is a Dangerous Escalation in the Suppression of Speech Targeting Palestinian Citizens of Israel
On 13 July 2025, Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, sent a legal letter to the the Chair of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, the Attorney General, the Knesset’s Legal Advisor, and the Police Commissioner, demanding the immediate halt of the legislative process for a proposed amendment to the Counter-Terrorism Law.
To read the letter (in Hebrew)
The (Hebrew) bill is available here
The proposed amendment to the Counter-Terrorism Law seeks to modify Article 24(b), which addresses the offense of “incitement to terrorism”, by lowering the evidentiary threshold. Currently, Article 24(b)(2) requires proof of a “substantial possibility” that an expression deemed to constitute incitement will lead to the commission of a terrorist act. The amendment would replace “substantial possibility” with “reasonable possibility”, thus loosening the legal requirements for prosecution even further. The bill also introduces a new criminal offense, punishable by up to three years in prison, for publishing praise, sympathy, or support for individuals found to have committed a terrorist act resulting in death, if done with the intent to endorse said act. However, this offense, similar to other offenses related to expression, employs vague language, thus it can be interpreted broadly. Following the Knesset’s approval of the bill in its first reading, additional amendments were introduced—most notably, removing the requirement for the State Attorney’s prior approval before opening criminal investigations into speech offenses under Article 24 of the Counter-Terrorism Law.
Adalah has consistently held since the passage of the law that Article 24, even prior to the amendment, is unconstitutional, violates fundamental rights and is designed to target Palestinian—citizens of Israel and residents of occupied East Jerusalem. While Palestinians constitute almost all of those arrested and indicted under the law, if Jewish-Israelis are arrested or investigated for their speech, it is under speech offenses in Israel’s penal code, which carry more lenient punishments. Through such mechanisms, Israel established two criminal legal systems for speech offenses—one for Jewish Israelis and another for Palestinians subjected to Israeli civilian law, with harsher sentences and fewer safeguards. The amendment, which does not change the requirement for approval from the State Attorney’s office for speech offenses under penal code—such as incitement to racism or violence—further entrenches these segregated systems.
For more on the Counter-Terrorism Law
The bill passed its first reading on 2 July 2024, and is now being prepared for its second and third readings. The bill will not be brought to a vote during the current Knesset summer session, which ends on 27 July, but the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee may continue preparatory work ahead of the fall session beginning in October 2025.
Adalah’s letter focused on the most recent addition to the proposed amendment, while previous letters addressed other aspects of the bill. For further details, see Adalah’s briefing paper.
In the letter, Adalah Attorney Hadeel Abu Salih stressed that the amendment constituted a serious violation of fundamental rights, most notably the rights to freedom of expression, equality, and due process. In doing so, the amendment seeks to legalize arbitrary, authoritarian practices used to silence dissent, particularly by Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem.
Adalah noted that the amendment would give the police broad powers to open investigations into individuals, based solely on their discretion. The police’s abuse of such powers has been clearly demonstrated since 7 October. On 15 December 2023, shortly after 7 October 2023, the Ministry of Justice published a statement announcing that it was waiving the requirement for police to obtain prior approval before opening investigations in these cases. The police then carried out hundreds of arbitrary and unlawful arrests and opened hundreds of investigations into Palestinians based on expressions that clearly fall well below the threshold for speech offenses established under the current Counter-Terrorism Law, such as posts expressing solidarity with victims of the war on Gaza, or even citing verses from the Qur’an, with the real goal of intimidation and repression.
Prior to the proposed amendment, when the State Attorney’s Office was required to approve an investigation into such cases, the State Attorney’s Office approved several outrageous investigations including the case of Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian. The proposed amendment seeks to eliminate even this minimal oversight. If enacted, it would therefore entrench and expand selective, political persecution against Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of Occupied East Jerusalem.
In the letter, Adalah urged the authorities to immediately halt the proposed amendment, emphasizing that continuing down this path threatens what remains of the space for civil liberties, and further undermines the rule of law.
