From Death Penalties to Hanging Effigies: Executions Feed the Cycle of Violence |
The hanging effigies of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and President Donald Trump on display at a recent pro-Palestinian rally in Montreal serve as the latest nauseating reminder that calling for executions only feeds the cycle of violence. In this case, as with Hamas’ recent threatening response to Israel’s new capital punishment laws, it also unmistakably fuels antisemitic fervor. The thousands of members of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty” across Israel and the world, including this author, have been keenly aware of this reality in advocating for years to end capital punishment in the United States, Israel, Iran and globally, without exception.
To be abundantly clear: there is no excuse for anyone to regurgitate the antisemitic filth that this recent display in my Canadian country of residence demonstrates. Yet, there can also be no doubt that Israel’s passage of two laws calling for the death penalty for terrorists only ripens the environment for this insidious form of hate to take root and fester. The fact that the executed effigies of Ben Gvir and Netanyahu feature the same noose lapel pin that Ben Gvir has worn for months as he championed these death penalty laws through the Knesset underscores this point.
The lesson is simple: the call for death only fuels the urge for more killing. Once any society exposes itself to the Pandora’s Box of state-sponsored killings of prisoners, all bets on civilized humanity are off. This includes Ben Gvir’s pre-Passover celebration of death, Hamas’ reciprocal call for violence against IDF soldiers, and now this veritable danse macabre in Montreal. It is for this reason that Elie Wiesel prophetically stated of capital punishment: “Death should never be the answer in a civilized society.”
Hanging Effigies: A Violation of Human Dignity and Jewish Values
The effigies — captured in videos posted on social media — became the subject of a hate crimes investigation on Tuesday and drew widespread condemnation from both local and provincial politicians across Canada who called the effigies “unacceptable” and Jewish groups who deemed them........