In his June 11 op-ed for the Jerusalem Report, ex-Shin Bet official Moshe Fuzaylov claims that “(t)he death penalty isn’t revenge, it’s how terror loses its key.” Mr. Fuzaylov concludes that executions form part of “a vital pincer movement designed to permanently extinguish the operational motivation of Palestinian terrorist organizations.” The thousands of members of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty” across Israel and the world, including this author, respectfully disagree. As we have written elsewhere in these pages, the death penalty inherently constitutes a particularly insidious form of vengeance, no matter how well it is cloaked in false, disproven notions of “deterrence,” or as Mr. Fuzaylov has framed it, “strategy.” A renowned comment regarding the well-established relationship between the death penalty and a desire for martyrdom comes from 19th-century writer Eliphas Levi. Levi demonstrated a keen understanding of the dynamics at play when he wrote: “Every head that falls upon the scaffold may be honored and praised as the head of a martyr.” If only Mr. Fuzalov grasped this harsh reality of unchecked, base human nature.

As a resident of Canada, this author needs look no further than these shores to see just how wrong this conclusion is: the death penalty does not remove terror’s key, but instead opens the door to further reprisals. Here in Montreal, 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 serve as the latest nauseating reminder that calling for executions only feeds the cycle of violence. As with Hamas’ recent threatening response to Israel’s new capital punishment laws, it also unmistakably fuels antisemitic fervor. L’chaim members 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 Canadian display demonstrates. Yet there can also........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)