Israel’s Perilous Death Penalty Bill Also Endangers Diaspora Jews

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Israel’s Perilous Death Penalty Bill Also Endangers Diaspora Jews

One such death penalty supporter wrote on social media that “…although you are Jewish, you are not Israeli, nor do you live in Israel. Stay out of Israeli politics, and I’ll stay out of Canadian politics.”

The potential danger that Israel’s death penalty bill poses to global Jewry makes it entirely necessary for non-Israeli Jews to speak out. In the eyes of antisemites across the world, there is no distinction between Jews and Israelis.

The inseparable connection between Jews and Israelis in the minds of Israel’s enemies is precisely why non-Israeli Jewish voices should be a part of the discussion about an issue as vital as the death penalty to global Jewish safety.

The group “L’chaim: Jews Against the Death Penalty,” of which I am the co-founder, has the right – and obligation – to sound the alarm over this bill. Founded in 2020, L’chaim includes thousands of members in both Israel and the Diaspora who realize that the collective deterrence delusion that sustains this racist bill in the minds of so many proponents blinds them to the most imminent peril this legislation poses.

Death penalty could invite more acts of terror

Not only will it fail to deter ter­ror­ists – and betray Jewish values by cheapening life – but it will, in fact, incite and invite more mur­der­ous acts of ter­ror. No invocation of the deterrence delusion – not even by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) – can erase the reality that the death penalty will doom Israel to an ultimately catastrophic, self-destructive path that will engender all the Jewish world.

Specifically, the death penalty’s well-documented brutalization effect would entice would-be mar­tyrs to attack Jews. 19th-cen­tury writer Eliphas Levi highlighted the well-estab­lished rela­tion­ship between the death pen­alty and the desire for mar­tyr­dom when he wrote that “Every head that falls upon the scaf­fold may be honored and praised as the head of a mar­tyr.”

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 Jew­ish prison chap­lain, I can per­son­ally attest to this harsh real­ity.

Proponents of this bill maintain that execut­ing ter­ror­ists will pre­vent future hostage-taking for prisoner swaps in Israel. 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 more pervasive dangers for the Jewish world. If the Knes­set were to enact it – lead­ing to the uncon­scion­able stain of exe­cu­tions darkening the moral fab­ric of Israeli soci­ety – anti­semitic extrem­ists would assuredly blame all the world’s Jews for this state-sponsored killing pro­gram. The death penalty would neatly fit into their warped view of Israel – and, by exten­sion, Juda­ism – as a so-called “death cult.”

Consider the probable future if Israel were to enact this legislation. As Ben Lynfield correctly predicts, the bill, once passed, would mark a “looming death certificate for the Israel that was.” After the shock of the bill’s passage would settle, global nations would realize, as Ron Dudai has compellingly written, that the far-right had cemented its ascendancy in Israeli society.

Jewish death cult claims would gain credence worldwide.

For all these reasons and more, L’chaim members have spoken out vociferously – and will continue to do so until Knesset members heed our voices of reason, for the sake of all the Jewish world.

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