In his June 11 op-ed for The Jerusalem Report, ex-Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) official Moshe Fuzaylov claimed that “(t)he death penalty isn’t revenge, it’s how terror loses its key.”
Fuzaylov is currently a senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy. He concluded that executions form part of “a vital pincer movement designed to permanently extinguish the operational motivation of Palestinian terrorist organizations.”
As a Canadian resident, I need look no further to see just how wrong his conclusion is: the death penalty does deter terror; it invites reprisal.
As I have argued before, the death penalty is vengeance disguised as deterrence – or, as Fuzaylov calls it, “strategy.”
The19th-century writer Eliphas Levi understood this dynamic: “Every head that falls upon the scaffold may be honored and praised as the head of a martyr.” If only Fuzalov did.
Here in Montreal, the hanging effigies of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and US President Donald Trump on display at a recent pro-Palestinian rally serve as the latest nauseating reminder that calling for executions only feeds the cycle of violence.
In this case, as with Hamas’ recent threatening response to Israel’s new capital punishment laws, it also unmistakably fuels antisemitic fervor. The thousands of members of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty in Israel and the world, including this author, are aware of this reality, advocating for years to end capital punishment in the US, Israel, Iran, and globally, without exception.
To be abundantly clear: there is no excuse to regurgitate the antisemitic filth that the recent Canadian display demonstrated. Yet there can also be no doubt that, contrary to Fuzaylov’s assertions, Israel’s passage of two laws calling for the death penalty for terrorists only ripens the environment for this insidious form of hate to take root and fester.
The fact that the executed effigies of Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu feature the same noose lapel pin that Ben-Gvir has worn for months as he championed these death penalty laws through the Knesset underscores this point.
The lesson is simple: calls for death fuel more killing. Once any society exposes itself to the Pandora’s Box of state-sponsored killings of prisoners, all bets on civilized humanity are off. This includes Ben-Gvir’s pre-Passover celebration of death, Hamas’ reciprocal call for violence against IDF soldiers, and now this danse macabre in Montreal.
It is for this reason that Elie Wiesel prophetically stated that when it comes to capital punishment, “Death should never be the answer in a civilized society.”
Hanging effigies: A violation of human dignity and Jewish values
The effigies – captured in videos posted on social media – became the subject of a hate crime investigation and drew widespread condemnation from both local and provincial politicians across Canada, calling them “unacceptable,” and Jewish groups deemed them antisemitic.
Montreal4Palestine, the group that hosted the event with the effigies, denied these accusations, writing on Instagram that it “strongly condemns the defamatory accusations and deliberate distortion of events.”
Recognizing the spectacle as antisemitic is essential. But focusing only on that obscures another point: calls for execution – whether from Israel or pro-Palestinian protesters – violate the principle of human dignity central to Judaism.
Responding by depicting the executions of Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu, and Trump is equally horrific. It illustrates how calls for execution beget more violence.
Hamas’ renewed calls for violence after Israel’s death penalty laws
The shameful Montreal event disproves Fuzaylov’s theory that executions will remove the “key” to terror, as Hamas leadership has responded to Israel’s two death penalty laws with a renewed call for the kidnapping of IDF soldiers.
That development, like the effigies, confirms the worst fears that opponents of Israel’s execution push have articulated time and again. It is horrendous proof positive that these laws jeopardize the safety and security of Jews across the globe.
Despite the clear-cut evidence that judicial state killings would only encourage reprisal, many proponents of Israel’s execution laws have since doubled down on their pro-death stance. Various advocates of execution have responded to Hamas’ threats by stating that Israel should hang all imprisoned terrorists. In doing so, they fail to consider how such actions would further perpetuate the cycle of violence. A closer examination of Hamas’ recent threats demonstrates this fact.
In the document that Hamas released, its leadership stated the strategic importance of intensifying efforts to kidnap Israeli soldiers, as it is the “only path” to securing the release of Palestinian prisoners facing state violence, according to an internal message published by KAN News.
It was circulated among Hamas operatives in Gaza after the Knesset passed the second of two laws that would impose the death penalty on convicted terrorists. Hamas called the second death penalty law a “fascist law,” and urged members of the organization’s military wing to escalate and carry out “active operations.”
Crucially, Hamas further warned that the execution of Palestinian prisoners could trigger broader escalation with soldiers in the Gaza envelope. This threat is presented as concrete evidence that the laws may provoke further violence.
“Any harm to the life of a prisoner is an explosive that will lead to the eruption of a volcano,” the letter read.
These developments underscore how the upcoming debate in the Supreme Court about the legality of the Death Penalty for Terrorists Law (the first of two new execution-related laws) is among the most consequential to come before the esteemed judicial body in the 21st century.
Its outcome affects not only the State of Israel but Jews everywhere. If the Supreme Court fails to repeal the law – if the stain of executions darkens the moral fabric of Israeli society – antisemitic extremists will blame all Jews for their state-sponsored murder program, fitting it into their warped view of Israel – and, by extension, Judaism – as a so-called “Death Cult.” For such extremists, that may be all it takes to replace hanging effigies with hanging human beings.
If repeal at the Supreme Court level succeeds, however, then it might pave the way for overturning the second law targeting terrorists convicted of the October 7 massacres.
For this reason alone, amidst many others, Supreme Court justices must redeem Israel by casting a resounding “No!” in response to the first of these death penalty laws now before them. They should unconditionally repeal this law, encouraging Israel to return to the civilized, abolitionist path for which Wiesel called.
Only then can Israel begin to halt the cycle of violence and killing, once and for all. The members of L’chaim! in Israel and the world truly hope that Fuzaylov will come to appreciate this demonstrable reality before it is too late.
The writer is a co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty and is an Advisory Committee Member for Death Penalty Action.