By Oded J. K. Faran and Walter E. Block
Photo by Amanda Slater from Coventry, West Midlands, UK – Noose, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikipedia
The Death Penalty Debate and Deterrence
A longstanding debate in the United States asks whether the death penalty reduces the murder rate. Many rigorous studies have found no clear statistical correlation between merely having capital punishment on the books and lower homicide rates. Opponents of the death penalty often cite this lack of proven deterrence in arguing against its use.
However, they have reckoned without the work of economist Isaac Ehrlich. In a landmark 1975 study, Ehrlich found that each execution carried out saved approximately eight innocent lives, implying a strong deterrent effect. Though controversial, subsequent research has even suggested larger effects when executions are frequent. The lesson is that having the death penalty is not enough – only its active and swift implementation appears to deter would-be murderers. In jurisdictions with very few executions, the death penalty seems to have no impact (or even a brutalization effect) on violence, whereas states that execute perpetrators more often (like Texas) show measurable drops in homicide.
Israel’s Unused Death Penalty and the Hostage Threat
Israel can take a lesson from these findings. The death penalty is legal in Israel, but it has been used only once – to execute Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962. In practice, Israel has been a de-facto abolitionist state, even for heinous crimes of terrorism. Meanwhile, Israel holds a large number of Arab/Palestinian security prisoners. As of late 2024, roughly 9,600-10,000 Palestinians were in Israeli custody on security or terror-related charges, with very few (if any) jailed for minor crimes like petty theft or jaywalking. These include convicted murderers, terror leaders, and violent offenders. Unhappily, some 2000 have been released under the Trump peace agreement.
On the other side, Islamist groups continue to target Israeli civilians. Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre was followed by the abduction of more than 200 Israeli hostages. Even after Israeli forces responded, dozens of hostages remained in Hamas’s hands well into 2024, and intermittent swaps freed some while others were still held or unaccounted for. Happily all live hostages have now been freed. Looking ahead, unless the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) completely wipes out Hamas, other hostile groups – Hezbollah, the Houthis, or other of Iran’s proxies – could commit new murders or kidnappings of Israelis. The carnage against Israeli innocents, both actual and threatened, remains a dire concern.
A Harsh Deterrence Proposal: “100-for-1” Reprisals
How can this carnage be radically reduced (if not ended outright – the perfect should not be the enemy of the good)? One proposed strategy is draconian but simple: for every Israeli hostage taken and killed by terrorists, Israel would execute 100 of its Arab/Palestinian prisoners. In practice, Israel would publicly threaten this reprisal policy – and if a hostage is murdered, carry it out without hesitation. Such a 100-to-1 retaliation ratio is undeniably harsh. It might not stop terrorists from attempting kidnappings, but if they know that killing an Israeli captive will automatically doom 100 of their comrades in Israeli prisons, the kidnappers would have a powerful incentive to keep hostages alive and unharmed.
Currently, groups like Hamas have scant incentive to ensure the well-being of captives – indeed, some hostages have been starved, tortured or executed in cold blood. They cannot even keep full track of where lie their dead hostages. The proposed policy aims to change that calculation. Even fanatical militants value their brothers-in-arms. Knowing that any harm to a hostage guarantees a mass execution of prisoners could make terrorist leaders think twice before ordering their murders. In short, this leverages the death penalty as a deterrent in the most direct way possible: by inflicting a vastly greater loss on the enemy for each Israeli hostage life taken.
Certainly, world opinion would be horrified by such executions, and many will call it immoral or unlawful. But Israel must ask itself: do we prioritize global opinion, or do we prioritize saving Israeli lives and stopping the slaughter of hostages? A policy of executing terrorists in custody – especially those already convicted of grievous crimes – in response to new Arab atrocities could dramatically curb the bloodshed, at least from rational actors who wish to avoid losing 100 for every 1.
Addressing Fairness and Historical Precedents
Is a 100:1 kill ratio unfair, disproportionate, or unjust? At first blush, it may seem so. Yet there is precedent in the Israeli-Arab conflict for lopsided exchanges – albeit in the opposite direction. History shows that virtually all prisoner swap deals between Israel and its enemies have been enormously skewed against Israel. In 1983, for example, Israel freed over 4,500 Palestinian detainees in exchange for 6 Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon. Two years later, the 1985 “Jibril deal” saw 1,150 Arab prisoners exchanged for 3 Israeli soldiers. Perhaps most egregious was the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal: Hamas released a single kidnapped Israeli soldier (Shalit) in return for 1,027 prisoners from Israeli jails. One of those released was Yahya Sinwar, a convicted murderer who had been serving four life sentences – Sinwar went on to become Hamas’s Gaza leader and the architect of the October 7 massacre.
This pattern repeats: dozens or hundreds of terrorists (including many killers and rapists) have been traded for one or a handful of innocent Israelis. Our back-of-the-envelope calculation puts the historical exchange rate at roughly 100 to 1 against Israel.
In other words, for decades Israel has accepted a de facto ratio of about 100 of the enemy’s people freed per Israeli life saved.
Seen in this light, the proposed “100-for-1” execution policy is an ironic inversion of that “disgraceful exchange rate.” Instead of Israel paying a hundred-to-one price to save Israelis, the enemy would pay the price in blood for killing Israelis. One might call it poetic justice. This does not involve vengeance per se, but rather deterrence through overwhelming cost: if terrorists know that murdering one Israeli will result in a hundred of their brethren being put to death, it “puts a gigantic spoke in the wheel” of their carnage. Even if it doesn’t halt terrorism completely, it would surely reduce its scale – the planners of attacks would have to weigh losing 100 comrades (or valuable operatives) for every Israeli victim upon whom they inflict death. Historical occupying armies have at times threatened severe reprisals to protect their soldiers from guerrilla attacks, accepting the moral trade-off in order to prevent greater overall loss of life. Israel faces a similar painful choice in confronting an implacable foe.
Fewer Terrorists, Less Carnage
Militant jihadists often proudly proclaim, “We love death more than you love life” – embracing a cult of death and martyrdom. Israeli society, on the other hand, cherishes human life. So be it. If the enemy truly welcomes death, a policy that delivers precisely that to the guilty in retaliation for harm to the innocent should, in theory, give them exactly what they claim to desire. Further, with far fewer of these fanatical killers left alive, the capacity for future carnage would be vastly diminished.
In a brutal war for survival against terrorists who operate as a death cult, Israel must consider equally tough measures to protect its people. The proposed 100-to-1 execution strategy may be extreme and undoubtedly controversial, but it directly targets those monsters responsible for murder. It sends an unequivocal message: for every Israeli life snuffed out by terror, the perpetrators and their cause will pay an almost unbearable price.
This policy may not end the violence overnight, but it could radically reduce the scale of atrocities. In the grim arithmetic of deterrence, saving Israeli lives and preventing the next massacre must take precedence over abstract notions of proportionality. When the lives of innocent civilians are at stake, a rational (if harsh) policy that drastically tilts the cost-benefit calculation against the terrorists can indeed help stem the carnage in the future.
Sources:
Recent statistics on Palestinians in Israeli custody; historical prisoner exchange figures; deterrence research on capital punishment; Israel’s sole use of the death penalty; documented Hamas rhetoric on loving death.
Trump’s Unsupported Death Penalty Claim – FactCheck.org
https://www.factcheck.org/2025/09/trumps-unsupported-death-penalty-claim/
The Case for Deterrence
https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/325971-the-case-for-deterrence
The shadow of the death penalty in Israel: Why is a legal punishment never used? – UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies
https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/israel-hebrew/death-penalty-in-israel-history/
Israel, Hamas and the toil of the prisoner exchange | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/11/27/israel-hamas-and-the-toil-of-the-prisoner-exchange
The Blogs: Journey into Hamas mind: “We love death” | Fiamma Nirenstein | The Times of Israel
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/journey-into-hamas-mind-we-love-death/
How many Arab prisoners are in Israeli jails?
How many Arab prisoners are in Israeli jails? – Search
As of December 2024, there are approximately 9,619 Palestinians in detention or prison in Israeli jails, including 2,216 from the Gaza Strip. This figure does not include those held in military camps or under administrative detention. The situation has significantly changed since the outbreak of the Gaza war, with many more Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons.
B’Tselem
Statistics on Palestinians in Israeli custody | B’Tselem
How many Arab prisoner are in Israeli jails plus military camps and under administrative detention
https://www.btselem.org/statistics/detainees_and_prisoners
Israeli Arab prisoner swaps
Israeli Arab prisoner swaps – Search
The four surviving [Israeli] POWs and Ilan’s body were returned on March 29, 1956, in exchange for 40 Syrian soldiers captured during various Israeli military operations.[1]
List of Arab-Israeli prisoner exchanges – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_prisoner_exchanges
What kind of prisoner swap was Sinwar involved in?
Yahya Sinwar was involved in a major prisoner swap deal between Hamas and Israel in 2011. This deal included the release of 1,027 Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners in exchange for a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Sinwar’s involvement in this swap was significant as it marked a pivotal moment in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, highlighting the complexities of the prisoner exchange process and the political dynamics at play.
The Arabs often brag that they are a death cult while the Israelis value human life.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-855895
Ehrlich:
Ehrlich, Isaac, and Gary S. Becker. 1972. “Market Insurance, Self-Insurance, and Self-Protection.” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 80, no. 4, University of Chicago Press, pp. 623–648, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1829358.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1972. “The Deterrent Effect of Criminal Law Enforcement,” Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. L (2), June, pp. 259-276.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1973. “Participation in Illegitimate Activities — A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 81 (3), May/June, pp. 521-565.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1974. “Participation in Illegitimate Activities — An Economic Analysis,” in The Economics of Crime and Punishment, Becker and Landes, eds., Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 68-134.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1975A. “On the Relation Between Education and Crime,: in Education, Income, and Human Behavior, F.T. Juster, ed., Mcgraw-Hill Co., New York, pp. 313-338.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1975B. “The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment — A Question of Life and Death,” American Economic Review, Vol. 65 (3), June, pp. 397-417
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1976A. “Deterrence: Evidence and Inference,” Yale Law Journal, Vol. 85 (2), December, pp. 209-227.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1976B. “Rejoinder,” Yale Law Journal, Vol. 85 (3), January.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1977A. “Fear of Deterrence — A Critical Evaluation of the Report of the Panel on Research on Deterrent and Incapacitative Effects,” Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 6 (2), June.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1977B. “Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Further Thoughts and Additional Evidence,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 85 (4), August, pp. 74l-788
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1977C. “The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Reply,” American Economic Review, Vol. 67 (3), June, pp. 452-458.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1978. “Deterrence and Economics: A Perspective on Theory and Evidence,” in Major Social Issues: A Multidisciplinary View, Milton Yinger and Stephen Cutler, eds., The Free Press.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1979. “The Economic Approach to Crime – A Preliminary Assessment,” in Criminology, Review Yearbook Vol. l, Messinger and Bittner, eds., Sage: Beverly Hills.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1981. “On the Usefulness of Controlling Individuals: An Economic Analysis of Rehabilitation, Incapacitation, and Deterrence,” American Economic Review, Vol. 71 (3), June, pp. 307-22.
Ehrlich, Isaac. 1982. “The Market for Offenses and the Public Enforcement of Laws: An Equilibrium Analysis,” British Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 21, pp. 107-20.
Ehrlich, Isaac and J.C. Gibbons. 1977. “On the measurement of the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment and the Theory of Deterrence,” Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 6 (l), January, pp. 35-50.
Ehrlich, Isaac and Richard A. Posner. 1974. “An Economic Analysis of Legal Rulemaking,” Journal of, Legal Studies, Vol. 3 (l), January, pp. 257-80.
Gary S. Becker, 1995. “The economics of crime,” Cross Sections, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 12(Fall), pages 8-15.
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