Israel’s Death Penalty Bill and Lapel Pin Glorify Killing and Sanctify Revenge

It was an abject abomination for lawmakers in the far-right Otzma Yehudit party to wear golden lapel pins in the shape of a noose during a recent committee meeting on the controversial bill to legislate the death penalty for terrorists.

Machiavellian politicians intended for these pins to be reminiscent of the yellow ribbon badges worn to raise awareness of the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023. A statement from National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s office explained that they intended for the noose pins to symbolize the lawmakers’ “commitment to the demand for the death penalty for terrorists” and send “a clear message that terrorists are deserving of death.”

This attempt at justification is, at best, self-deception. At worst, it is nothing short of a bald-faced lie.

Civilized humanity recognizes that these totems in actually symbolize the glorification of state killing and the sanctification of revenge that mark the true meaning of capital punishment in any form. Executions are nothing short of veiled vengeance.

The politicians adorning themselves with death were attending a meeting of the National Security Committee to deliberate on the legislation after it passed its first reading last month. Since then, the bill has undergone several changes and, in its current form, poses several constitutional difficulties, according to the committee’s legal adviser.

In the hearing on the bill, which has encountered firm opposition from Israeli rights groups and human rights organizations across the world, Ben Gvir stated that the noose is just “one of the options through which we will implement the death penalty law for terrorists.” He added, “Of course, there is the option of the gallows, the electric chair, and also the option of euthanasia.”

More than seventy percent of nations that have abolished the death penalty in law or practice recognize that there is, by definition, no humane way to put human beings to death against their will. Every execution method carries with it the inherent employment of psychological – and often physical – torture. We, the thousands of members of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty,” know this viscerally from our regular communication with condemned Jewish and non-Jewish pen pals forced to count down the final months, weeks, days, and hours of their lives before their scheduled state-sponsored killings in the United States.

One cannot overemphasize the unquestionable and unconscionable Nazi legacy of the execution methods of gassing, lethal injection, and the firing squad, to name but a few. Other egregious realities about capital punishment include its justification through the disproven fallacy of deterrence and its inevitable racist implementation, which the Israeli bill makes more blatant in its targeting of non-Jewish terrorists. These all comprise the actual realities and legacies symbolized by the Otzma Yehudit noose pin.

The noose lapel pin also perpetuates the myth that killing captured Hamas terrorists will save Israeli lives. This assumption, too, is patently false. Instead, it would only create more shahids – “martyrs” – among Israel’s enemies. As 19th-century philosopher Eliphas Levi famously wrote: “Every head that falls upon the scaffold may be honoured and praised as the head of a martyr.” A mandatory death sentence for Palestinians who murder Jews will therefore almost certainly increase the number of terrorist attacks. Why would Israel want to encourage potential terrorists? On a purely practical level, this proposed legislation is insane.

Elie Wiesel encapsulated the stance of L’chaim’s members. When asked about his feelings on capital punishment, Wiesel resolutely stated, “Death is not the answer.” By the end of his life, Wiesel publicly said that he made no exception to this rule, stating: “With every cell of my being and with every fiber of my memory, I oppose the death penalty in all forms. I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don’t think it’s human to become an agent of the angel of death.”

Twenty-first-century Judaism must hold by the red line that Wiesel set forth. It cannot lower itself to the status of enemies such as Hamas, Iran, and Yemen by violating its moral obligations and ethical standards and engaging in state-sponsored killings of defenseless prisoners. With Wiesel’s neshama – spirit –  in mind and heart, and on behalf of all L’chaim members, we respectfully implore all Israelis to call upon their representatives in the Knesset to hold this line.

Cantor Michael J. Zoosman, MSM, BCC

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

Advisory Committee Member, Death Penalty Action