When Leaders Compete to Be the Toughest: Noah 5787
When Leaders Compete to Be the Toughest: Trump, Netanyahu, and a World Losing Its Moral Bearings
Parashat Noah and the danger of turning punishment into a spectacle
There is something deeply unsettling about the political moment in which we find ourselves. Two powerful leaders, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, have cultivated a relationship built on mutual admiration, political calculation, and the projection of strength. Yet their relationship is not simply a story of alliance. It is also a story of competing political pressures, public displays of toughness, and the danger that, in the contest to appear most uncompromising, moral restraint becomes a casualty.
It would be too simple to claim that the two men are consciously trying to outdo one another in every decision. Their relationship is more complicated than that. They have cooperated closely, disagreed sharply, and sometimes publicly challenged one another. But a troubling pattern emerges when we examine the political incentives confronting each man: both have reason to demonstrate that they will not be seen as weak, that they will punish enemies decisively, and that no one—not even an ally—can dictate their choices.
The consequences reach beyond their personal relationship. They affect the language of war, the pursuit of justice, the treatment of political adversaries, and even the way a society understands the taking of human life.
Recent events have made this concern impossible to ignore. In the United States, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has promoted the idea of livestreaming the planned execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of murdering thirteen people at Fort Hood in 2009. President Trump has approved Hasan’s execution by firing squad but, as of October 10, has not made a final decision about broadcasting it. Meanwhile, a botched execution in Tennessee has raised fresh questions about the reality and morality of state killing. In Israel, the murder of Netanel Chekroun, a father of six, has prompted calls for the execution of the Palestinian suspect under Israel’s newly enacted death-penalty law.
These are different cases, with different legal circumstances and different political contexts. They should not be collapsed into one narrative. But together they force us to confront a question that Parashat Noah places at the heart of our moral existence: What happens when a society becomes so consumed with punishing evil that it loses sight of the humanity it claims to defend?
The politics of never appearing weak
The relationship between Trump and Netanyahu has often been presented as a remarkable political partnership. Both leaders have cultivated an image of personal strength, an ability to defy conventional expectations, and a willingness to confront institutions they regard as obstacles. For Netanyahu, close access to an American president has long been a source of political leverage at home. For Trump, a highly visible relationship with Israel’s prime minister reinforces his image as a leader who commands loyalty and reshapes international affairs.
But alliances built around strong personalities are vulnerable to a peculiar dynamic: neither partner wants to appear subordinate to the other.
That tension has become increasingly visible. In August 2026, Netanyahu publicly rejected a U.S.-backed framework for the next stage of the Gaza ceasefire, insisting that Israel would not withdraw before Hamas was completely disarmed. Trump, who had presented the framework as a major diplomatic achievement, faced the prospect of having his own ally undermine his initiative. Reporting by The Washington Post described the two leaders as increasingly constrained by their domestic political interests and the pressures of approaching elections.
This is not simply a disagreement over strategy. It illustrates the peculiar fragility of political relationships in which personal prestige becomes inseparable from national policy.
Trump wants to be seen as the dealmaker who can compel others to accept his terms. Netanyahu must demonstrate to his own political constituency that he will not surrender Israeli security to an American president, even one with whom he has cultivated an unusually close relationship. Each has an incentive to project independence and strength. Each risks appearing weak if he compromises too visibly.
The result is not necessarily a literal contest in which one leader copies the other’s every move. It is something subtler: a political environment in which restraint can be portrayed as weakness, compromise as surrender, and the willingness to inflict punishment as proof of leadership.
When that becomes the prevailing standard, escalation can become politically more rewarding than wisdom.
The danger is especially acute when the subject is punishment. It is one thing to compete over who can negotiate the most favorable trade agreement or secure the strongest military alliance. It is quite another to compete over who can impose the harshest consequences on a perceived enemy.
When justice becomes a performance
The proposal to livestream Nidal Hasan’s execution brings this danger into sharp focus.
Hasan was convicted in a military court of murdering thirteen people and wounding thirty-two others in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. The crimes were horrific, and the anguish of the victims’ families is enduring. Nothing about questioning the proposed execution broadcast diminishes the gravity of what he did.
In October 2026, the Pentagon announced plans to execute Hasan by firing squad on December 3 and to livestream the event. Hegseth defended the proposal on the grounds that the public needed to understand that serious crimes have serious consequences. Trump approved the execution but said on October 10 that he had not yet made a final decision about broadcasting it. Vice President JD Vance expressed doubts that the livestream would proceed, while lawmakers from both parties and religious leaders raised objections.
The proposal is extraordinary not merely because of the method of execution but because of the proposed audience.
The United States has a long history of capital punishment, but public executions were abandoned as spectacles decades ago. The last widely recognized public execution in the country occurred in 1936. The decision to broadcast a military execution to a mass audience would represent a profound reversal of that historical retreat from public killing.
What is the intended lesson? That murder is wrong? That society must protect innocent people? That consequences matter? These are important truths, but none requires a public broadcast of a human being’s death.
There is a difference between making the justice system accountable to the public and making death itself a public spectacle.
The first is a democratic responsibility. The second risks turning punishment into entertainment.
A government can explain its laws, publish its judgments, memorialize victims, and educate the public about the consequences of violence without inviting millions of people to watch an execution. Indeed, a society confident in its moral principles should not need to display a killing to demonstrate that it takes murder seriously.
The irony is particularly sharp when the proposal comes from leaders who present themselves as defenders of civilization against barbarism. If the point is to demonstrate that America is morally different from terrorist organizations that glorify violence, why adopt a practice that resembles the spectacle those organizations use to intimidate, humiliate, and recruit?
The comparison is not that a lawful military execution and a terrorist murder are equivalent. They are not. The question is whether the state should deliberately use the spectacle of death as a tool of public messaging.
As former counterterrorism officials and religious leaders have warned, such a broadcast could provide propaganda to extremist groups rather than deter them. It could also expose viewers, including children, to disturbing material for no clear public benefit.
There is something almost childish about the logic that the more dramatic the punishment, the stronger the message. It assumes that moral authority can be measured by the severity and visibility of a state’s violence.
But the most powerful response to cruelty is not necessarily to demonstrate that we can be crueler.
Tennessee: the human body behind the sentence
The events in Tennessee offer another sobering perspective.
On September 30, 2026, Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike, who had been convicted of murdering Colleen Slemmer in 1995. Pike survived after receiving two doses of lethal-injection drugs. She suffered serious complications, was hospitalized, and was subsequently returned to prison. The governor suspended further executions for the remainder of the year pending an investigation. Another Tennessee execution attempt had already encountered serious problems earlier in the year.
The brutality of Slemmer’s murder should never be forgotten. Nor should the pain of her loved ones be minimized. But Pike’s survival exposes something that public discussion of capital punishment often obscures: execution is not an abstract sentence. It is an invasive physical procedure carried out by human beings, using medical equipment and drugs, with the possibility of error and suffering.
The state’s intention may be to bring about death efficiently, but its ability to do so is not guaranteed. The procedure can fail. The person being executed can suffer. Officials can make mistakes. And when the state attempts to correct those mistakes, it must confront the reality that it has deliberately placed a human body in a process intended to end a life.
The question is not whether Pike is innocent of the crime for which she was sentenced. It is whether the state can claim moral certainty about the necessity and execution of the ultimate punishment.
A failed execution does not resolve the debate over capital punishment. But it makes the human stakes impossible to ignore.
Israel: grief, justice, and the temptation of vengeance
In Israel, the killing of Netanel Chekroun has produced a similarly urgent moral challenge.
Chekroun, a father of six, was killed in a shooting near Neve Tzuf in the West Bank on September 20, shortly before Yom Kippur. His sixteen-year-old son survived because his father warned him to run. The grief of the family and community is profound.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir immediately called for the captured Palestinian suspect to be hanged. Netanyahu subsequently directed officials to examine whether Israel’s new death-penalty law could be applied. The legislation, passed in March 2026, makes death the default punishment, subject to specified exceptions, for certain non-Israelis convicted of fatal nationalist attacks in military courts. Its critics argue that its unequal application raises fundamental questions of discrimination and due process.
The moral danger here is not that Israeli leaders are wrong to take terrorism seriously. They have an obligation to protect their citizens, apprehend perpetrators, and pursue justice. The danger is that the understandable demand for accountability can become an opportunity for politicians to display their toughness.
A murder has occurred. A family is shattered. A community is afraid and grieving. Before a judicial process has determined the suspect’s guilt and punishment, political leaders are already discussing the gallows.
What does that accomplish? It may communicate resolve. It may satisfy a desire for retaliation. It may reassure a constituency that its leaders will not be intimidated. But it also risks making the punishment itself a political performance.
And when the law prescribes different consequences depending on the identity of the accused, the question becomes even more serious. Justice cannot be reduced to the assertion that our victims matter more than the victims of others, or that our enemies deserve fewer legal protections than our own citizens.
Israel has genuine security concerns. The October 7 attacks and the ongoing threat of terrorism cannot be wished away. But the moral legitimacy of a democratic state is tested precisely when its fears and anger are justified. It is easy to defend due process when the accused is sympathetic. It is harder—and more important—when the accused is hated.
Noah and the covenant that restrains us
Parashat Noah offers a framework for thinking about all three cases.
After the Flood, God establishes a covenant with Noah and his descendants. The world has been given another beginning, but humanity has not been transformed into a species incapable of violence. The covenant is made with people who remain capable of cruelty, aggression, and destruction.
Then the Torah declares:
שֹׁפֵךְ דַּם הָאָדָם, בָּאָדָם דָּמוֹ יִשָּׁפֵךְ, כִּי בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים עָשָׂה אֶת הָאָדָם.
“Whoever sheds the blood of a human being, by a human being shall that person’s blood be shed, for in the image of God, God made humanity.” (Genesis 9:6)
The verse is often invoked to justify capital punishment. But its final words demand deeper reflection. The reason human blood is sacred is that every human being is created in God’s image.
The victim bears that image. The perpetrator bears that image. The people who administer justice bear that image. The principle that gives human life its sanctity must shape not only our condemnation of murder but also our response to it.
The Mishnah makes this tension explicit. In Makkot 1:10, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon declare that, had they served on the Sanhedrin, no one would ever have been executed. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel objects that such a policy could encourage murderers. The disagreement is preserved rather than erased.
This is an extraordinary exchange. The rabbis do not deny the need to protect society. They recognize the danger of allowing compassion to become indifference to violence. But they also understand that the authority to take a human life demands extraordinary caution.
Their debate offers an antidote to the politics of one-upmanship. It insists that a society’s moral seriousness is not measured by how quickly it reaches for the harshest punishment. It is measured by whether it can hold competing obligations in tension: the duty to protect the innocent, the demand for accountability, the possibility of judicial error, and the sanctity of human life.
The moral cost of trying to look stronger
It is tempting to see Trump and Netanyahu as engaged in a personal competition to project toughness. That interpretation captures something important about the political incentives surrounding them, but it should not obscure the complexity of their relationship. They have cooperated, clashed, and pursued different interests. Neither can simply be reduced to a caricature.
Still, their political styles raise a broader concern. When leadership becomes a constant performance of strength, the capacity to exercise restraint can look like weakness. When every compromise is portrayed as surrender, leaders lose room to negotiate. When punishment becomes a public demonstration of power, the suffering of the condemned can become secondary to the message delivered to the audience.
And when political success depends on appearing more uncompromising than one’s rivals, the temptation is to escalate.
That is how moral boundaries can shift. What once seemed unthinkable becomes a proposal worth considering. What once seemed cruel becomes a demonstration of resolve. What once belonged to the realm of vengeance acquires the language of justice.
This is not simply a problem of two leaders. It is a problem of the political culture that rewards them. Leaders respond to the incentives created by their supporters, parties, media environments, and electoral calculations. If citizens reward spectacle over reflection and severity over wisdom, they should not be surprised when political leaders supply more of both.
The answer is not to demand weakness. It is to recover a richer understanding of strength.
Strength can mean protecting people from terrorism. It can mean ensuring that murderers are held accountable. It can mean refusing to let fear dictate every decision. But it can also mean resisting the pressure to turn an execution into a broadcast, refusing to make punishment a campaign prop, and recognizing that a state does not become more just simply by becoming more punitive.
The rainbow in the Noah story is a sign of a covenant made with an imperfect humanity. It does not promise that violence will disappear. It promises that destruction will not be God’s final answer to the human condition.
That is a demanding vision of leadership. It asks us to confront evil without becoming enthralled by it, to punish wrongdoing without celebrating suffering, and to protect our communities without abandoning our principles.
Perhaps the most disturbing feature of our current moment is not that leaders are willing to punish those who commit terrible crimes. It is that some seem prepared to make the punishment itself a spectacle of national pride.
A civilization should not need to watch someone die to know that murder is wrong. A democracy should not need to demonstrate its power through public cruelty. And a Jewish state, born from the history of a people whose dignity was so often denied, should be especially careful not to let the demands of vengeance overwhelm the demands of justice.
The covenant after the Flood reminds us that the task of civilization is not simply to defeat those who do evil. It is to preserve the conditions under which humanity can continue to be human.
The measure of a leader is not how terrifyingly he can punish an enemy, but whether he can exercise power without surrendering his moral judgment. And the measure of a society is not how eagerly it watches an execution, but whether it still understands why human life must be treated as sacred.
Selected sources and further reading
- The Washington Post, Trump-Netanyahu tensions and competing political pressures.
- Reuters, Republican opposition to the proposed livestreamed execution.
- Associated Press, Christa Pike’s survival of Tennessee’s failed execution.
- Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The killing of Netanel Chekroun and calls for execution.
- Mishnah Makkot 1:10, Rabbinic debate on capital punishment.
