Ben-Gvir, MKs Sport New Lapel Pins to Knesset Depicting Hangman's Noose
Otzma Yehudit introduced new pins to demonstrate support for bill allowing death penalty for terrorists. Labor MK Kariv: "Revolting paraphrase of the hostage pins."
A charged Knesset hearing on legislation to institute the death penalty for terrorists sparked fresh political clashes on Monday, after National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and fellow Otzma Yehudit lawmakers arrived wearing new lapel pins shaped like a hangman’s noose.
Ben-Gvir told the National Security Committee that the pins symbolized one of several possible execution methods the bill envisions. “We all came with a pin that represents one of the options for implementing the death penalty for terrorists,” he said. “There is the gallows, the electric chair, and there is also the option of lethal injection. Since it was reported that doctors would refuse to help, I’ve received a hundred messages from doctors saying, ‘Itamar, just tell us when.’”
Public Health Physicians Association chair Prof. Hagai Levine reiterated the medical community’s opposition. “We oppose the death penalty law,” he told the committee. Ben-Gvir shot back, “What do you have to do with this? What does the death of a terrorist have to do with you?” When Levine warned the measure would traumatize the public, Ben-Gvir replied, “The trauma of bereaved families isn’t important? Who funds you? I’d revoke your professorship right now.” Levine responded that the proposal “will harm public health in Israel.”
The symbolic pins drew condemnation from Labor Party MK Gilad Kariv, who called them “a revolting paraphrase of the hostage pins,” accusing Otzma Yehudit of running a “cynical and disgraceful campaign on the backs of bereaved families.” Kariv argued that the bill is “immoral, unconstitutional, will not survive the High Court of Justice, and lacks full support even within the Shin Bet.”
A Shin Bet representative at the hearing, however, voiced support for the legislation. He said the agency had opposed the death penalty for three decades out of concern it would inflame Gaza, spark unrest inside prisons, or fuel support for Hamas in Jerusalem. Those assessments, he said, changed after October 7. Changes in prison conditions have reduced inmates’ ability to organize, and a deadly attack in East Jerusalem early in the war “created deterrence.” He added that “not all terrorists come intending to die anymore, so there is a community deterrence aspect.”
Kariv pressed the agency on the reversal. The representative responded that the organization’s long-held assumptions had shifted in light of the current security reality.