“Israeli Green Mile” Killings Will Traumatize Israel Prison Service Executioners

According to Israel’s Channel 13 news and other Israeli news outlets, the Israel Prison Service (IPS)  has begun work preparing facilities to execute terrorists convicted of murder, even though the Knesset has not yet passed a bill mandating the death penalty. This construction – like the noose-shaped lapel pin that National Security Minister Itamar Ben G’vir wears to promote this bill – manifests a horror that had until now only been a nightmarish fantasy. One experiences a palpable shock upon witnessing this tangible step toward fruition for Ben Gvir’s proposed death penalty for Israel. That visceral disgust serves as a harsh reminder of the fact that executions will only traumatize Israeli citizens who are made to volunteer for the “solemn duty” of carrying them out – a fact to which IPS Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi himself recently secretly admitted. State-sponsored killings would only further compound the collective intergenerational trauma already deeply embedded in the twenty-first-century Jewish  consciousness.

The “Israeli Green Mile”

Within the past few days, prison officials have begun setting up a compound, dubbed the “Israeli Green Mile,” where executions will take place.  (The term “Green Mile” refers to the lime-green colored linoleum floor of E Block, the death row corridor at Cold Mountain Penitentiary in Stephen King’s novel and its 1999 film adaptation. It symbolizes the final, emotionally long walk condemned prisoners tortuously take from their cells to the electric chair, representing the inevitability of death.)  While the bill currently under consideration does not specify the means of execution, IPS has reportedly settled upon hanging. The execution facility will use a remote-controlled gallows, enabling a team of three corrections officers to hang convicted terrorists by simultaneously pressing three activation buttons. The guards conducting the executions will be selected “on a voluntary basis” and will undergo “specialized training” to handle the sensitive nature of the procedure. As part of its preparations, a delegation from IPS is expected to travel to an East Asian country in the near future to study capital punishment systems still in use. The visit is intended to examine legal frameworks, operational procedures, and ethical considerations surrounding the application of the death penalty. IPS is expecting the death penalty law, once passed, will initially apply to terrorists from Hamas’ infamous Nukhba Force who took part in the atrocities of October 7, 2023. Only later would the IPS implement the death penalty for terrorists convicted of deadly attacks in Judea, Samaria, and pre-1967 Israel.

Ben-Gvir (of Otzma Yehudit) lauded the IPS’s preparations, stating:  “By hanging, by electric chair, by lethal injection, by firing squad. It doesn’t matter how. Terrorists who raped our daughters and massacred our children deserve only one thing: the death penalty. It is just. It is moral. It is a duty.” Ben Gvir’s assessment is fundamentally flawed. As the thousands of members of “L’chaim: Jews Against the Death Penalty” have argued for years (and as Jewish organizations like Rabbis for Human Rights and so many others have reiterated in the Knesset to the affirmation of thousands of petition signatories), the death penalty is, in fact, not “just.” On the contrary, as many have addressed, it is inherently racist. Neither is it “moral.” It is in actuality a moral stain and ethical violation of the most fundamental right of life, and an unambiguous human rights disaster in the making. And  under no circumstances should it be made “a duty.”

A Traumatic “Solemn Duty” for any Corrections Officer

If my years of service as a Jewish prison chaplain here in British Columbia, Canada, have taught me anything, it is that the work of correctional officers is inherently traumatic. No amount of danger pay could alleviate the institutionalization that so many front-line prison officials suffer as a result of their work.  When complicity in state-sponsored murder compounds this reality, the impact increases exponentially.

If this prison chaplain’s word is not convincing enough, consider the testimony of Ron McAndrew, a for­mer war­den who over­saw numerous exe­cu­tions on Florida ’s extremely active death row. A leg­isla­tive com­mis­sion in New Hampshire study­ing the effec­tive­ness of the state’s death penal­ty and com­par­ing it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole conducted a hearing regard­ing the trau­ma prison staff endure dur­ing any exe­cu­tion. The commission called upon McAndrew to testify as to his own experience. In the hearing, he stated: “(m)any col­leagues turned to drugs and alco­hol from the pain of know­ing a man had died at their hands. And I’ve been haunt­ed by the men I was asked to exe­cute in the name of the state of Florida.” McAndrew said he has received calls from dis­tressed prison work­ers and exe­cu­tion­ers. Some cor­rec­tions offi­cers, he added, have com­mit­ted sui­cide because of their guilt and regret. McAndrew con­clud­ed, “Being a cor­rec­tions offi­cer is sup­posed to be an hon­or­able pro­fes­sion. The state dis­hon­ors us by putting us in this sit­u­a­tion. This is pre­med­i­tat­ed, care­ful­ly thought out ceremonial killing.”

Image: A Screenshot of former executing Florida prison warden turned death penalty abolitionist Ron McAndrew. No copyright. Source: https://deathpenaltyaction.org/the-people-vs-the-death-penalty/

McAndrew now works to stop executions and end the death penalty. He does so from the unique platform of having carried out executions in the name of the people of Florida. In a brief film that McAndrew recorded for Death Penalty Action, he shares how his role as an executioner shaped his life and turned him from a staunch advocate for executions to a leading voice against the death penalty. He now is active in the Catholic Church and serves on the Advisory Committee for Death Penalty Action. He is also active with Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Warden McAndrew’s voice of experience should serve as a serious warning to any IPS worker asked to “volunteer” for this medieval, macabre task.

This unnecessary traumatization of Israeli citizens only adds to the manifold reas­ons why this death pen­alty bill is, by defin­i­tion, an abom­in­a­tion that, if enacted, would spell catastrophe for Israeli society and Jews everywhere. Those factors include the unmistakable truths that the death pen­alty is not a deterrence, would only incite further martyrs to attack Israel, 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. It is for sound reason that Jew­ish tra­di­tion renders the death pen­alty vir­tu­ally impossible to carry out. In the wake of the events of the Holocaust, it especially behooves Jews everywhere to remember that many exe­cu­tion meth­ods are dir­ect Nazi legacies, includ­ing fir­ing squad, gass­ing, and lethal injec­tion. Famed death pen­alty abol­i­tion­ist Elie Wiesel best artic­u­lated the stance of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty” when he famously said of cap­ital pun­ish­ment that – in the shadow of the Holo­caust – “death should never be the answer in a civ­il­ized soci­ety.”  Israeli law­makers should heed Wiesel’s mes­sage and recog­nize that the unnecessary, egregious trauma of imposing exe­cu­tions is not the answer in Israel today, and never should be – anywhere.

Cantor Michael J. Zoosman, MSM

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

Advisory Committee Member: Death Penalty Action