On Saturday, Iran hanged the twenty-seven-year-old champion wrestler Navid Afkari, after torturing him into confessing to a spurious murder charge. Afkari’s real crime was participation in the 2018 anti-government protests—which led to the arrest and torture of hundreds of others. Since seizing power in 1979, notes Michael Rubin the ayatollahs have “executed tens of thousands of prisoners and dissidents,” but this case may be different:

On December 20, a Palestinian waited in a wooded area near a Jewish village in northern Israel in the hope of encountering a victim. Soon enough he spotted Esther Horgan walking home from an evening jog and killed her by beating her with a rock. He later told the police that he did the deed to avenge the death of Kamal Abu Wa’er, a terrorist in Israeli custody. Itamar Marcus explains: