Israel and the Shalit deal: the moral dilemma of hostage-prisoner exchange
The dilemma Israel faces when its enemies take hostages such as Gilad Shalit is an excruciating one.
IDF soldier Shalit was captured by Hamas over five years ago. He’s only 25 years old now, but it probably seems like several lifetimes to him and certainly to his parents. He was kept all that time under conditions that “multiple human rights organizations have stated…are contrary to international humanitarian law.”
The purpose of a kidnapping such as Shalit’s is to wring the susceptible Israeli heart into releasing a great many terrorists in exchange, and that is exactly what has finally happened. Eitan Haber reflects on the conundrum for Israelis:
Yet a day or two shall pass, and the very same media, which turned the Shalit family and its noble struggle into a “commercial product” filled with tears, will slam the number of terrorists released, and especially their “quality.” The most will be written about the life sentences. Various media outlets will compete for the exact number: 2,000 life sentences, or is it 2,135 [sic]? Not even one kind word will be dedicated to those who secured Shalit’s release from captivity. Plenty of bad blood and charges will follow. We’re world champions when it comes to that.
I’m not so sure all the self-flagellation is warranted. The dilemma is inherent in the situation, as the hostage-takers well know. Israel is a tiny country composed of people who are both tough and pushovers, and each citizen is almost like family.
Giving in to terrorists through such exchanges has several bad effects. It encourages a repeat; the hostage-takers have gotten exactly what they want. They will score not only the return of over a thousand terrorists (some of them murderers), but major propaganda points. Talk about cycles of violence!
And in return the Israelis get: Gilad Shalit. How to measure the value of a life? I can’t.
It is true that you, like many others in the west, cannot measure the value of a life. It is equally true that among those convicted haters of Israel released back into the wild in this deal there will be more than a few who can measure it and they, in their time, will exact a very full measure. The grim truth here is that the Shalits got their son back at the cost of an as yet unknown number of other Israeli children’s lives.
If I were Shalit, I would really be pissed. One-fifth of his life (so far) is gone, and for what? Why didn’t Israel make this exchange five years ago? Why did they knuckle under now?
Why now? Because it would seem that the policy of any given Israeli government is to never negotiate with terrorists, wait a bit, and then negotiate. A fact not lost on Hamas.
I guess it just goes to show that individuals are nothing but pawns in the hands of governments.
Israel’s policy should be to never negotiate with terrorists but, to hunt down and kill terrorists.
In this case, they should have determined who was involved in the kidnapping–fromwho gave the initial go ahead/order, to planning, to execution, and just systematically hunted these people down and executed them–one by one.
I expect that after the first few executions–especially if those executions started at the top of the chain of command–such kidnappings would cease.
P.S.–It may well be characterized as a “humanitarian act,” but getting back one soldier, but at the cost of releasing thousands of potential terrorists, who will then get another chance to wreak their havoc on Israel all over again is just insanity.
Isn’t there a saying from the Midrash that says that, “He who is compassionate to the cruel, will end up being cruel to the compassionate”? (see http://www.acpr.org.il/ENGLISH-NATIV/06-issue/shochetman-6.htm)
I’m not exactly anti-Jewish, or what you edukated people call anti-Smelter or something. But I think i would like to be cause there is so much to think about why 1000 people whould be let loss for one guy. Cause that one guy mjus be imporant. he must likely be a banker.
Look at it this way: a thousand intifadans who no longer have to be guarded, housed, deloused, and fed, and whom the IDF will have a chance to shoot in future.
Wolla Dalbo, you provided an excellent site. It shows the amount of complexity with which Jewish law is concerned. If fact, it seems there is no final end to the complexity but, like a river that ends in desert sands, the final end is not confusion, but clarity. The river ends and the end is an end. This check upon mercy would have greatly enhanced Ghandi’s efforts and prevented the loss of much life.
The penultimate paragraph from Wolla Dalbo’s cite:
As to the foolish ideas, as if Israel’s willingness to relinquish additional tracts of the Land of Israel into the hands of Arab terrorist organizations will somehow lessen or silence the terrorism, the Prime Minister should be directed to the immortal words of the Torah regarding Israel’s enemies who seek to destroy it: “For those of whom you allow to remain of them shall be thorns in your eyes and stings in your sides and shall vex you in the land wherein you dwell” (Numbers 33:55). The meaning of those words of warning is: “Not only will they occupy those parts of the land which you haven’t acquired, but even those parts which you have acquired — they will vex you there saying, get up and leave.” In modern language: One who flees terrorism — terrorism will pursue him everywhere. This was the interpretation of Rabbi Haim ben-Atar in his commentary Or HaHayim on the Torah. This sage, who lived in North Africa in the 18th century and moved to Israel towards the end of his life, displayed a profound understanding of the souls of those who seek to destroy us, much more than some Orientalists, intelligence experts and diplomats who live among us today. This basic verity has not and will never change.
Israel needs death penalty for terrorism.
Curtis: if you don’t want to be thought anti-Jewish, don’t deal in stereotypes. A banker? Hardly. A young man in the IDF, captured when he was 19 years old.
Perhaps you should study the Talmudic saying in order to understand:
Which is not to say that I agree with the terms of the prisoner exchange. But I understand the impulse to free this young man. I happen to think the cost is too great. But I’m also glad I’m not the one tasked with making the decision.
(It also occurs to me that perhaps your comment was made in jest.]
Neo, that Tamudic saying is right on. And yes, I’m sorry, I was playing a persona.
What I love about that Talmudic saying is that it has such a love for life, and all life, and even more, that there is some sort of calculus where there is a transaction of 1000 for 1; even more, a world for a soul. Such are God’s riches.
Can it be believed? That 1000 be exchanged for 1? What clearer sign may be given?
I do apologize for making my jester position, but am happy that you would require clarification. I know you know my beliefs, but others don’t and would not necessarily catch the parody and sarcasm.
I love this development! How it sets man’s reason on end. How it repudiates Bentham utilitarianism and fatalism. Do we know that God’s Word is active?
Now we do.
Well…… It just shows that it takes a thousand Palestinians to equal the worth of one Israeli.
That ratio seems about right to me!
Wolla Dalbo wrote”Israel’s policy should be to never negotiate with terrorists but, to hunt down and kill terrorists.”
Actually if you follow the Jerusalem Post killing the responsible terrorists is exactly what the Israelis have been doing. As for never negotiating with terrorists; frankly even after becoming an Israeli and living there for years in that country there are aspects of the Israeli mentality that I cannot fathom, mainly why they insist on believing that peace is possible with the Palestinians. I guess they just don’t to face up to the reality their their children’s children will have to face unending war and conflict.
It seems as if the “Palestinians” just don’t catch on to the ultimate insult– that the life of a Jew is worth 1,000 Palestinians! The Palestinians set the price, after all… A Palestinian “world” is worth far less than a Jewish “world,” and the Palestinians obviously agree.
The upshot is that the Talmudic saying regarding the value of a life also exists, in similar words, in the Qur’an without regard to race, ethnicity, or religion. It becomes clear that the Palestinians have less regard for the tenets of Islam than that of the Jews for their teachings.
So, who loses this skirmish in the long run? The Jews? It is the Muslim
Sorry, fat fingers on a small, pretend keyboard…
It is the Muslim whose self-worth is ultimately diminished and demeaned over time as their perception of the lower value of their own lives sinks in.
Israeli’s should know better. In fact it would have been prudent for they themselves to kill Shalit at the earliest date to prevent such bargaining as a possibility.
Regrettably, SteveH, I agree. The net result is going to a lot more dead Israelis.
I will never understand why they don’t just follow the Al Jazeera “journalists” around with drones, and once this poor Shalit fellow is recovered, kill everone and everything that any of these vermin so much as LOOKED at.
Because people cant actually tie and associate a later incident due to prior incidents, even if we do know it deep inside when negative conditions are rewarded, this is irrelevant in gaining something from it. a simple truth table would reveal why, especially if the table is not gamed to pc beliefs over empirical knowlege…
Rhbindfw–in fact, the Talmudic saying to the effect that “killing one person is like killing the whole world, and saving one person is like saving the whole world” is repeated in the Qur’an in verse 5:32, but, context is everything, particularly with the Muslim’s religiously sanctioned “Holy Deceptions” of Takiyya (lying) and Kitman (withholding key elements of the truth)–to be used by Muslims in all their dealings with us unbelievers, if to do so will protect or advance the cause of a Muslim or of Islam–are in play.
Thus, Muslim apologists often cite this quote–suitably modified and truncated–from Qur’an 5:32 to demonstrate just how peaceful and against killing Islam and Muslims really are.
The problem here is that when you read this verse in its entirety, and in the context of the Qur’an verses preceding and following it–which are never cited by Muslim apologists– you will see that this is an admonition directed by Muhammad and his Muslim proselytizers very specifically at the Jews of Mecca, who were resisting Muhammad and these proselytizer’s pressure to convert to Islam, and who were being warned not to resist Muhammad and his proselytizer’s pressure to covert to Islam, or they (who by resisting calls for their conversion were “waging war against Allah and against Muhammad, His Apostle, and making mischief in the land”) would be subject to the punishment of having have their alternate arms and legs chopped off, be crucified, killed, or be imprisoned (see, for instance, http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/guestessays/islam_peace.htm ,l
http://sheikyermami.com/taqiyya-holy-deception-quran-532/ and http://pedestrianinfidel.blogspot.com/2005/09/axis-of-islam-verses-of-hate.html)
[5.27] “And relate to them the story of the two sons of Adam [ i.e. Cain and Abel] with truth when they both offered an offering, but it was accepted from one of them and was not accepted from the other. He said: I I will most certainly slay you. (The other) said: Allah only accepts from those who guard (against evil).
[5.28] If you will stretch forth your hand towards me to slay me, I am not one to stretch forth my hand towards you to slay you surely I fear Allah, the Lord of the worlds:
[5.29] Surely I wish that you should bear the sin committed against me and your own sin, and so you would be of the inmates of the fire, and this is the recompense of the unjust.
[5.30] Then his mind facilitated to him the slaying of his brother so he slew him; then he became one of the losers
[5.31] Then Allah sent a crow digging up the earth so that he might show him how he should cover the dead body of his brother. He said: Woe me! do I lack the strength that I should be like this crow and cover the dead body of my brother? So he became of those who regret.
[5.32] For this reason did We prescribe to the children of Israel that whoever slays a soul, unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men; and certainly Our apostles came to them with clear arguments, but even after that many of them certainly act extravagantly in the land.
[5.33] The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.”
(Qur’an quotes from the 1983 Shakir translation found at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/koran/koran-idx?type=DIV0&byte=158021)
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The bigger story today is how the Christian and non-muslim population of the world is pathetically acquiescing in the murder and ethnic cleansing of the Copts in Egypt, as well as other non-muslims elsewhere and in the past; while playing into the insidious international muslim totalitarian game, and with enthusiastic complicity in the left-wing/islamic U.N. anti-Israel mission. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, when they’re finished coming after me, they are coming after you; it is just a matter of demographics and when the muslim population in any given location reach a critical mass which enables their brazen sharia intimidation-domination game. If your reaction to this comment is (self-righteous) indignation, then you have to be dishonest (including scared?) or intellectually retarded to not understand this reality, now which is it?
One of the primary reasons that these events are playing out as they are is the direct result of American-Democratic Party pandering (by the Obama-Clinton Democrats in particular) to the muslim culture which has enabled everything from the Shalit kidnapping to the ethnic cleansing of the Copts. Then, of course, there are the Tibetans, and the Kurds, long, long overdue for their own states. Did people happen to notice a very recent poll of muslim residents of East Jerusalem in which only thirty percent favored separation from Israel….
vanderleun,
“Because it would seem that the policy of any given Israeli government is to never negotiate with terrorists, wait a bit, and then negotiate.”
This line in the sand was rubbed out in the early 1990s, when the Israeli government, previously steadfast about not negotiating with the Phakestinian “Liberation” Organization, started sending delegates to sit in front of their representatives at the conference table. Earlier still, with the Jibril Deal in 1985, in which three Israeli soldiers were exchanged for 1150 terrorists, among them the 1972 Lod Airport mass-murderer.
All stems from the “leadership” valuing international “law” and “world opinion” above Jewish survival; above Jewish Law, which says murderers get the death penalty, prisoners are not taken in a war of survival, civilians are to be fired at if the combatants intermix with them–and on those combatants is the sin in God’s eyes–and above all, no hostile non-Jewish population is allowed to stay residing on the Land of Israel once the Jewish nation returns to establish sovereignty on it.
The Shalit deal is just the latest of symptoms issuing from this root cause.
The link below by a former US ambassador to Israel puts the whole thing in a much different perspective:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/12/the_iranian_connection
If I were Israel, and I were “negotiating” on this point over a period of years, I would try to see if I could turn a few of the terrorist suspects and, over the years of back-and-forth, get those people into the list of “Palestinians” to be returned. And if I couldn’t do that, I would try to quietly convince the enemy that I had done so.