A “Deterrence Delusion” Masks the Real Danger of Israel’s Death Penalty Bill

Proponents of the death penalty bill currently before the Knesset center their arguments around the notion of “deterrence.”  Recently, a representative of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) told Israeli lawmakers that it now supports the bill in principle, marking a significant shift from its longstanding opposition. The crux of the Shin Bet’s arguments rested on their statement that “imposing the death penalty on terrorists can contribute to deterrence” of other murderous acts. Copious academically rigorous meta-studies disprove this notion that the Shin Bet uses to justify a measure that, if enacted, will only further endanger Israelis and Jews everywhere. The crucial role of the deterrence argument in this debate necessitates a more detailed discussion of how this fallacy has taken hold of so many minds, despite overwhelming evidence debunking it.

Debunking Deterrence

The state of Florida, which led the United States with 19 executions in 2025, seems an appropriate place to turn at this pivotal moment to unpack the myth that the threat of the death penalty will deter criminals from committing more serious crimes. Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the Sunshine State’s flagship death penalty abolitionist organization, recently cited a 2017 Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) report that confirmed that “no evidence exists to support this claim [of the death penalty’s deterrence of crime], and the data suggests the opposite.” DPIC added that an “analysis of US murder data from 1987 through 2015 . . . found no evidence that the death penalty deters murder or protects police.” Instead, as DPIC continued, “the evidence show[ed] that murder rates… are consistently higher in death penalty states than in states that have abolished the death penalty.” The study demonstrated that the murder rate in death penalty states (6.646) was higher than the national average (6.424) and significantly higher than in non-death penalty states (4.788). A 2021 article by the reputable Florida newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, reported similar findings and determined that “[a]nnual murder rates are consistently higher overall in the death penalty states than in the 22 without capital punishment.”A more recent analysis by the Death Penalty Policy Project has concluded that “after 1,600 Executions, the Public and Police are Safer in States with No Death Penalty.”

Another means of disproving the death penalty deterrence myth is by analyzing data regarding mass shootings, which are, of course, endemic to the United States, where capital punishment remains legal in many jurisdictions. As of March 11, 2023, the Gun Violence Archive reported 106 mass shootings in 2023. Only 23 (21.7%) of those mass shootings were in non-death penalty states. Altogether, these 106 mass shootings have killed 157 people and injured an additional 415. Eighty-two percent of the fatalities were in death penalty states, and eighty-one percent of the injuries were in death penalty states. The Death Penalty Policy Project corroborated these findings in another recent publication, concluding that “the Death Penalty Does Not Deter Mass Shootings.” This data speaks for itself, underscoring how deterrence is a trumped-up fallacy when it comes to the death penalty.

Understanding the “Deterrence Delusion”

Various possible explanations exist for why death penalty supporters cling to the deterrence misconception, despite the massive size and scope of contrary research and findings. One category of individuals and organizations cites deterrence, despite truly understanding that it is a concocted notion. Many of these advocates invoke it as a means to justify legislating lethal vengeance. For Machiavellian politicians like National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – not unlike convicted felon Donald Trump – personal political aspirations motivate shameless exploitation of the popular urge for revenge.

Ben Gvir, the prime proponent of Israel’s proposed death penalty for terrorists bill, recently revealed how this lethal blend of vengeful punishment and political advancement constitutes the actual motivation behind the death legislation he is championing. Ben Gvir showed his hand when he spoke at the funeral of fallen police officer Ran Gvili, Z’L, of blessed memory, the final hostage returned from Gaza. On that sacred, somber occasion, he said to the gathered mourners: “Punishment for the terrorists – those who raped our women and killed our children deserve the punishment of death!”

B’vir’s comment marks a blatant attempt to exploit mourners to gain political capital in this election year. It marks the latest in a deplorable campaign of noose-lapel-laden political theater that glorifies killing and sanctifies revenge. Ben Gvir, no doubt, calculated that his invoking the penalty of death would be met with applause by individuals naturally experiencing overwhelming, understandable feelings of sadness and anger.

There are, however, many other death penalty bill proponents who cite deterrence as a factor, not to intentionally mislead others, but rather because they genuinely believe in its veracity. These individuals have fallen under the spell of a veritable “deterrence delusion.” It is not an exaggeration to assign this descriptor to this false belief. A delusion, of course,  is a fixed, false belief that individuals firmly hold despite clear evidence to the contrary. While a delusion often indicates an underlying mental, neurological, or physical disorder, it is not always a reflection of a mental disorder. Indeed, another well-known triggering factor is extreme stress.

Let there be no doubt: the barbaric mass slaughter that Hamas and other affiliated terrorist groups carried out on October 7th, 2023 – brutally murdering at least 1,219 people and taking 251 hostages, most of them Israeli civilians – indeed qualifies as “extreme stress” by any reasonable measure. It follows, then, that in the wake of this trauma, victims and loved ones might latch onto the false belief of deterrence as a form of self-defense.

It is essential to state that in the wake of the unimaginable horrors of the Oct. 7th attacks, no one ever should claim to be speaking for the loved ones of murder victims. As a hospital chaplain myself, I regularly counsel mourners that they should feel permission to experience the whole gamut of human emotion while grieving, including rage, and even the desire for vengeance where applicable. Let no one ever judge anyone in such a position. If I myself were to lose a loved one to murder, or if my own children were ripped away like 9-month-old baby Kfir and 4-year-old Ariel Bibas, Z’L, and countless others on Oct. 7th, I could very well find myself desiring — and perhaps even advocating for — the death of my loved one’s killers. A civilized society has a responsibility to protect and honor all such mourners, while also upholding the most basic human rights upon which this world stands. Fundamental to these, of course, is the right to life itself.

The Death Penalty’s Real Danger: Inciting More Martyrs and Inviting Murders in Israel

This pro­posed death penalty bill, however, poses much more than just a moral and ethical violation. Tragically, the collective deterrence delusion that sustains this bill in the minds of so many proponents blinds them to the most imminent peril posed by this legislation. Not only will it fail to deter ter­ror­ism, but it will, in fact, only incite and invite more mur­der­ous acts of ter­ror.

Abundant scholarship supports this assertion. Scholars have written for decades about capital punishment’s “brutalization effect,” namely, how the death penalty actually increases homicide rates rather than deterring them. Prominent criminologist William J. Bowers verified this execution byproduct in his seminal work “Deterrence or Brutalization: What is the Effect of Executions?” – a foundational 1980 study with Glenn Pierce analyzing New York State homicide data from 1907 to 1963, and a second scholarly article entitled “The Effect of Executions is Brutalization, Not Deterrence (1988),” which presented a comprehensive re-evaluation of the deterrence versus brutalization debate. Bowers’ research, particularly his 1980 article with Glenn Pierce, found that homicides typically increased by two to three incidents in the months immediately following an execution. His scholarship included various arguments. First, Bowers found that executions send a message that “lethal vengeance” is a socially acceptable response to a perceived wrong. Bowers also concluded that state-sanctioned killings diminish public respect for human life, “brutalizing” the population. Bowers and Pierce further demonstrated that potential murderers do not identify with the person being executed. Instead, they identify their own enemies with the executed criminal, seeing the execution as a justification for killing those who have wronged them. Ultimately, Bowers realized that capital punishment is an incitement to violence rather than a deterrent.

There is ample reason to apply this “brutalization effect” to Israel and to con­clude that the proposed death penalty bill would only entice would-be mar­tyrs to attack Israelis. A renowned com­ment regard­ing the well-estab­lished rela­tion­ship between the death pen­alty and the desire for mar­tyr­dom comes from the 19th-cen­tury writer Eliphas Levi. He demon­strated a keen under­stand­ing of these dynam­ics when he wrote: “Every head that falls upon the scaf­fold may be honored and praised as the head of a mar­tyr.”

Applying the brutalization effect and Levi’s wis­dom to mod­ern-day Israel, it becomes clear that a man­dat­ory death sen­tence for Palestini­ans who murder Jews will almost cer­tainly increase the num­ber of attacks. Rad­ical Islam­ist ter­ror­ists – like those who per­pet­rated mass murder on Octo­ber 7, 2023 – cel­eb­rate mar­tyr­dom in anti­cip­a­tion of the sup­posed rewards await­ing them in para­dise. They want to die for their cause. Their pref­er­ence is mar­tyr­dom in the actual act of killing, but if they can kill and then be placed on a ped­es­tal, lauded as her­oes facing the death pen­alty for their cause, then all the bet­ter – espe­cially if they become celebrit­ies in a world where so many hate Israel for how it treats non-Jew­ish cit­izens. If the death pen­alty is insti­tuted, such scen­arios would undoubtedly tran­spire. Why would Israel want to encour­age poten­tial ter­ror­ists? On this purely prac­tical level, the pro­posed legis­la­tion is insane.

A far more severe pun­ish­ment for such individuals is incar­cer­a­tion, which forces terrorists to con­front what they have done while endur­ing the con­stric­tions of a max­imum-secur­ity prison every day. As a former Jew­ish prison chap­lain, I can per­son­ally attest to this harsh real­ity.

The Shin Bet and other proponents of this bill maintain that execut­ing ter­ror­ists will pre­vent future hostage-taking in prisoner swaps. What they fail to recog­nize is that Israel can avoid this out­come simply by chan­ging the law to for­bid includ­ing any­one dir­ectly involved in murder in any future pris­oner exchanges, without excep­tion. Such legis­la­tion would solve the prob­lem without cre­at­ing new mar­tyrs around whose memory other ter­ror­ists would assuredly rally.

This perilous bill poses addi­tional dangers. If the Knes­set were to enact it – lead­ing to the uncon­scion­able stain of exe­cu­tions suc­ceed­ing to darken the moral fab­ric of Israeli soci­ety – anti­semitic extrem­ists would assuredly blame all Jews for their state-sponsored killing pro­gram, neatly fit­ting it into their warped view of Israel – and, by exten­sion, Juda­ism – as a so-called “death cult.”

Just as this bill jeop­ard­izes the safety and secur­ity of Jews across the globe, it also threatens to per­man­ently mar what remains of Israel’s moral stand­ing among the more than 70% of the world’s nations that have abol­ished the death pen­alty in law and prac­tice. In today’s volat­ile polit­ical cli­mate, which already imper­ils the rule of law in Israel, this issue fur­ther nor­mal­izes the invoc­a­tion of state viol­ence and widens the gap between mod­ern Israel and the cent­ral Jew­ish value of the invi­ol­ab­il­ity of life.

The thousands of mem­bers of “L’chaim: Jews Against the Death Penalty” have out­lined, ad nauseam, mul­tiple addi­tional reas­ons why this death pen­alty bill is, by defin­i­tion, an abom­in­a­tion. L’chaim delin­eated these points in a Hanukkah post, enu­mer­at­ing in detail “8 Reas­ons to Vote Against the Death Pen­alty this Hanukkah.” These include the fact that the death pen­alty viol­ates the human right to life, always con­sti­tutes tor­ture, risks execut­ing the inno­cent, is racist in its applic­a­tion, and – from Adolf Hitler to Don­ald Trump to Ben-Gvir – has been used as a polit­ical tool, par­tic­u­larly dur­ing elec­tion cam­paigns. L’chaim has also illus­trated how Jew­ish tra­di­tion renders the death pen­alty vir­tu­ally impossible, and how many exe­cu­tion meth­ods are dir­ect Nazi legacies, includ­ing fir­ing squad, gass­ing, and lethal injec­tion.

Famed death pen­alty abol­i­tion­ist Elie Wiesel best artic­u­lated L’chaim’s stance when he said of cap­ital pun­ish­ment – in the shadow of the Holo­caust – that “death should never be the answer in a civ­il­ized soci­ety.” Israeli law­makers should heed Wiesel’s mes­sage and recog­nize that exe­cu­tions are not the answer today, and never should be. No invocation of the deterrence delusion – not even by the Shin Bet – can erase the reality of the existential threat that the death penalty poses for Israel.

Cantor Michael J. Zoosman, MSM

Co-Founder: L’chaim: Jews Against the Death Penalty

Advisory Committee Member: Death Penalty Action