Israel has often found itself asking the question, how much is a life worth? This week they asked it with a twist: how much is mere proof of life worth? A whole lot.
The government yesterday traded 20 female Palestinian prisoners—accused (and often convicted) of crimes from plotting suicide attacks to carrying concealed weapons—for a video proving the soldier Gilad Shalit is still alive. Captured by Hamas in 2006, Shalit has been subject of several attempted deals, and when his freedom is finally won, it will likely be in a hugely asymmetrical deal. Is it worth it?
Probably not. Even conceding that a soldier's life is worth the release of hundreds of prisoners, Israel has several times gotten a raw deal from these trades. In one famous 1985 exchange, Jerusalem traded 1,150 Arab prisoners—some of whom turned around and started shooting again—for three soldiers captured during the Lebanon occupation. Even when they don't, trades like these convey exactly the wrong incentive structure, encouraging the taking of hostages. I wrote about this last summer:
The Israelis have since learned their lesson, says Robert Hunter, who was director of Middle East affairs on the National Security Council during the Carter administration. There are up to 40,000 Arabs in Israeli jails today, and many could indeed be released without posing an immediate security threat. Last fall, in an effort to bolster the teetering government of Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert liberated 90 prisoners, none of whom, Olmert swore, had previously engaged in terrorism. And Nissim Nasser—the Hizbullah spy Israel just freed into Lebanon—is now so well known that he no longer poses an espionage threat. "Obviously, they only release the people who don't pose a big risk," says Hunter.
Analysts say there's an even greater threat, however: the strategic danger that prisoner swaps will encourage terrorists to take more prisoners, and not only in Israel. "[It] says to future terrorists that if you can get somebody valuable enough, Israelis will trade," says Todd Sandler, a professor of economics at the University of Southern California. "They'll trade if you capture a soldier or children. And the exchange rate is very high." Indeed, a kind of inflation can result. Sandler's data, collected from across the world over 37 years, show that for every kidnapper paid off, 2.5 more abductions took place.
Case in point: in 2004, the Prime Minister Ariel Sharon traded 435 Hizbullah irregulars for a kidnapped Israeli businessman and the remains of three soldiers. Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah came out looking like a hero and learned his lesson well: two years later, Hizbullah snatched two soldiers from inside Israel—an incident that led to the Lebanon war of 2006 (the soldiers remain in captivity).
Given the risks, why has Israel stuck with its unofficial policy? Part of the explanation is religious: the redemption of captives, is a commandment from Genesis. Maimonides, the 12th-century Jewish philosopher, wrote that is a more important duty even than feeding and clothing the poor. More prosaically, Israel is a democracy, and its citizens—especially mothers of young captured soldiers—often put intense pressure on the government to win their release.
While the impetus to trade may be understandable, however, the dangers are very real—and can spread across borders. "There is no question that the Iraqi Shia insurgency learns from Hizbullah, and the Taliban learns from the Sunni insurgency," says Steve Simon, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations. Al Qaeda documents released by the Pentagon in 2006 show that the group learned not only from its own experiences, but also from other terrorists like the Italian Red Brigades.
This suggests that terrorist strategists worldwide may be watching Israel closely—and concluding that it would serve them well to capture Western soldiers deployed to hot spots in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere. It points to an awkward truth for Israel: the tiny state often feels that it's left on its own to face a great many dangers, and that's true. But in this case, at least, the actions it takes in response can end up endangering us all.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
