April 9, 2026
Orly Noy
But capital punishment, as Ben Gvir surely knows, is not just fun and games: It requires extensive logistical arrangements. And on that front, he has a lot to learn from what he calls the “Iranian terror regime” — one of the world’s foremost practitioners, responsible for 64 percent of state-sanctioned executions documented globally in 2024. Ben Gvir could not have asked for a more professional and experienced mentor than the Islamic Republic.
According to the new Israeli law, only murders committed with the intention of “negating the existence of the State of Israel” warrant the death penalty. And while this is certainly vague enough to include as many Palestinians as possible, its architects will be ruing a missed opportunity to deal with other dissidents and deviants — although Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was quick to insist that the law also applies to “traitors from within.”
Still, compared to their Iranian counterparts, Israel’s far-right lawmakers have a long way to go. The list of offenses warranting a death sentence in Iran is dizzying in its scope, including burglary, prostitution, drug trafficking, homosexuality, political dissidence, adultery, and “waging war against God.”
Under Israel’s new law, executions are to be carried out by hanging at a facility managed by the Israel Prison Service. How dull. Here, too, Ben Gvir can take inspiration from the Islamic Republic. What about a public hanging in the town square? Entertainment for the masses is not something to scoff at in these difficult times, and it’s free of charge.
And why restrict himself to only one method? The Islamic Republic has also carried out executions by firing squad, stoning, and pushing people off a cliff. Would stoning not serve as a fitting tribute to Ben Gvir’s professed commitment to Jewish tradition?
There remains one final matter to settle: the question of who will carry out the executions. Israel has very little experience with executioners; in fact, only one person has ever served in that role. Shalom Nagar, who executed Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, would later testify to the PTSD and nightmares that haunted him for the rest of his life.
In this matter too, Israel can draw on Iran’s rich experience. The question of executioners occupies much of the public and cultural discourse in Iran — including in the piercing film “There Is No Evil” by director Mohammad Rasoulof, which deals with how evil is carried out at the hands of ordinary people who are fated to live in a society of executioners.
An insightful interview with one such executioner — a young army conscript who served in the security unit of the Iranian prison service — was published a decade ago on the IranWire website (a Persian-language outlet published outside Iran that is strongly critical of the regime). Since our executioners, too, will be “ordinary people” — fathers, sons, brothers, and neighbors — it is worth taking heed of his reflections; they may soon feel relevant to us.
‘I saw myself as responsible for a person’s death’
Rasoul (a pseudonym used by the young soldier) was called upon by his commander to conduct an execution only five months into his service. “I felt both pressured and excited,” he told IranWire.
“The truth is that beforehand I already had a kind of curiosity to watch such a ceremony,” he continued. “In the prison where I served, they would not open the courtyard, which opens every morning, until the execution was over. When I saw the hanging rope I wanted to see the ceremony, but soldiers were not permitted to watch executions unless they served as the executioners.”
The first time he stood in the yard beside the gallows, his hands and legs trembled more than the defendant’s, who had been sentenced to death for drug trafficking and rape. “I was unable to walk, but they told me to take the defendant to the gallows and place the rope around his neck,” Rasoul recounted. “The defendant’s legs froze and he moved with difficulty, and although I was trembling myself, I felt the strong tremor of his body. Still, I brought him to the gallows and wound the rope around his neck.”
Unlike in the ceremony known as qisas (retaliatory killing, or “an eye for an eye”), where the family of the executee’s victim can either choose to stop the killing or kick the stool themselves from under the executee’s feet, in a state execution it is the executioners who kick the stool, Rasoul explained. “In the prison where I served there was a stool, but I heard that in larger prisons there is a crane, and the executor only presses a button to operate it.”
Rasoul’s role was to pull the stool from under the defendant’s feet after the sentence was read aloud. “The moment the stool is kicked away, the executor’s role is over, and he must immediately leave the execution ceremony,” he said.
After the execution, Rasoul recounted, he did not sleep for two nights and suffered from nightmares and pangs of conscience. “I saw myself as responsible for a person’s death and blamed myself. I went to the prison counselor and told him everything. He said: ‘These are people who must die. Those who are executed killed themselves; you’re not killing anyone.’ He spoke for a while, but it did nothing to reduce my distress.”
Rasoul was present at approximately 15 executions and witnessed many scenes that stayed with him. “One time, when I took a defendant to put the hanging rope around his neck, he urinated on himself out of fear,” he explained.
He also cried during an execution. “There was a 19-year-old boy in the prison who had quarreled with his friend and killed him. He was a very smart and polite young man. The prison welfare department did everything to obtain the victim’s family’s consent to grant forgiveness, but they refused. On the day of execution I brought him to the gallows. It was the victim’s family that kicked the stool from under his feet. I simply broke down and wept.”
The interview with Rasoul was conducted about two years after the end of his military service. “For two years now I have been seeing a psychiatrist and taking medication to reduce my anxiety and nightmares,” he said. “Forgive me if my voice is shaking.”
Orly Noy
As Israel embraces the death
penalty, government ministers can look to what they call the ‘Iranian terror
regime’ for inspiration — and caution.
Few of us will ever experience a
joy so intense as that which overcame Israeli National Security Minister Itamar
Ben Gvir late last month, when the Knesset voted to legalize the death penalty
for Palestinians. The champagne bottle he tried to open with ostentatious
festivity doesn’t quite capture the magnitude of elation he must have felt in
that moment.
But capital punishment, as Ben Gvir surely knows, is not just fun and games: It requires extensive logistical arrangements. And on that front, he has a lot to learn from what he calls the “Iranian terror regime” — one of the world’s foremost practitioners, responsible for 64 percent of state-sanctioned executions documented globally in 2024. Ben Gvir could not have asked for a more professional and experienced mentor than the Islamic Republic.
According to the new Israeli law, only murders committed with the intention of “negating the existence of the State of Israel” warrant the death penalty. And while this is certainly vague enough to include as many Palestinians as possible, its architects will be ruing a missed opportunity to deal with other dissidents and deviants — although Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was quick to insist that the law also applies to “traitors from within.”
Still, compared to their Iranian counterparts, Israel’s far-right lawmakers have a long way to go. The list of offenses warranting a death sentence in Iran is dizzying in its scope, including burglary, prostitution, drug trafficking, homosexuality, political dissidence, adultery, and “waging war against God.”
Under Israel’s new law, executions are to be carried out by hanging at a facility managed by the Israel Prison Service. How dull. Here, too, Ben Gvir can take inspiration from the Islamic Republic. What about a public hanging in the town square? Entertainment for the masses is not something to scoff at in these difficult times, and it’s free of charge.
And why restrict himself to only one method? The Islamic Republic has also carried out executions by firing squad, stoning, and pushing people off a cliff. Would stoning not serve as a fitting tribute to Ben Gvir’s professed commitment to Jewish tradition?
There remains one final matter to settle: the question of who will carry out the executions. Israel has very little experience with executioners; in fact, only one person has ever served in that role. Shalom Nagar, who executed Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, would later testify to the PTSD and nightmares that haunted him for the rest of his life.
In this matter too, Israel can draw on Iran’s rich experience. The question of executioners occupies much of the public and cultural discourse in Iran — including in the piercing film “There Is No Evil” by director Mohammad Rasoulof, which deals with how evil is carried out at the hands of ordinary people who are fated to live in a society of executioners.
An insightful interview with one such executioner — a young army conscript who served in the security unit of the Iranian prison service — was published a decade ago on the IranWire website (a Persian-language outlet published outside Iran that is strongly critical of the regime). Since our executioners, too, will be “ordinary people” — fathers, sons, brothers, and neighbors — it is worth taking heed of his reflections; they may soon feel relevant to us.
‘I saw myself as responsible for a person’s death’
Rasoul (a pseudonym used by the young soldier) was called upon by his commander to conduct an execution only five months into his service. “I felt both pressured and excited,” he told IranWire.
“The truth is that beforehand I already had a kind of curiosity to watch such a ceremony,” he continued. “In the prison where I served, they would not open the courtyard, which opens every morning, until the execution was over. When I saw the hanging rope I wanted to see the ceremony, but soldiers were not permitted to watch executions unless they served as the executioners.”
The first time he stood in the yard beside the gallows, his hands and legs trembled more than the defendant’s, who had been sentenced to death for drug trafficking and rape. “I was unable to walk, but they told me to take the defendant to the gallows and place the rope around his neck,” Rasoul recounted. “The defendant’s legs froze and he moved with difficulty, and although I was trembling myself, I felt the strong tremor of his body. Still, I brought him to the gallows and wound the rope around his neck.”
Unlike in the ceremony known as qisas (retaliatory killing, or “an eye for an eye”), where the family of the executee’s victim can either choose to stop the killing or kick the stool themselves from under the executee’s feet, in a state execution it is the executioners who kick the stool, Rasoul explained. “In the prison where I served there was a stool, but I heard that in larger prisons there is a crane, and the executor only presses a button to operate it.”
Rasoul’s role was to pull the stool from under the defendant’s feet after the sentence was read aloud. “The moment the stool is kicked away, the executor’s role is over, and he must immediately leave the execution ceremony,” he said.
After the execution, Rasoul recounted, he did not sleep for two nights and suffered from nightmares and pangs of conscience. “I saw myself as responsible for a person’s death and blamed myself. I went to the prison counselor and told him everything. He said: ‘These are people who must die. Those who are executed killed themselves; you’re not killing anyone.’ He spoke for a while, but it did nothing to reduce my distress.”
Rasoul was present at approximately 15 executions and witnessed many scenes that stayed with him. “One time, when I took a defendant to put the hanging rope around his neck, he urinated on himself out of fear,” he explained.
He also cried during an execution. “There was a 19-year-old boy in the prison who had quarreled with his friend and killed him. He was a very smart and polite young man. The prison welfare department did everything to obtain the victim’s family’s consent to grant forgiveness, but they refused. On the day of execution I brought him to the gallows. It was the victim’s family that kicked the stool from under his feet. I simply broke down and wept.”
The interview with Rasoul was conducted about two years after the end of his military service. “For two years now I have been seeing a psychiatrist and taking medication to reduce my anxiety and nightmares,” he said. “Forgive me if my voice is shaking.”
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