The Israeli government seems determined to free terrorists from prison. Sometimes it’s to boost Abbas’s sagging image among his own people. Sometimes it’s as a “confidence-building” measure to coax the Palestinian Arabs to the negotiating table. And sometimes, as of late, it’s to negotiate the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
First, 20 Palestinian Arab women were released to secure a video of Shalit to prove he’s alive. (At least the government made sure he was alive first, unlike last time when hundreds of Arab murderers were released in exchange for Uri Regev’s and Ehud Goldwasser’s corpses.) These women were not arrested doing their family’s shopping, or while hanging laundry on the line. They were suicide bombers whose attempts were foiled, were caught smuggling suicide belts, and assisted in the murder or attempted murder of innocent people.
That was just for the video. Next there’s talk of emptying the prisons of another 1000 Hamas terrorists (most of Israel’s Hamas holdings) in exchange for Shalit himself.
I’ve written in the past about the Torah’s attitude toward redeeming captive Jews. But if you look at the big picture, i.e. the long term result of “prisoner exchanges” like this, it begins to look like something quite different. Because today’s prisoners are yesterday’s terrorists (or terrorist-wannabes), and tomorrow’s unrepentant ex-cons who will return to a life of terror. When they’re put in prison, it isn’t to get them to repent their actions (the origin of the word “penitentiary”); it’s to get them off the streets where they make their murderous mischief. Setting them free mocks everything that put them into prison in the first place: the laws against murder and terrorism, the risk to the lives of the police, army, and Shin Bet who captured them, and the certain danger to civilians in releasing them again.
I’m no economist, but I was recently made aware of a financial scheme in which people invest large amounts of money on the promise of fat returns. There really are no such investments, and new investors simply end up paying the dividends for the older investors. Eventually, this robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul scheme (also known as “Ponzi”) catches up with the operator with disastrous results. Lives are ruined, fortunes down the tubes, and people everywhere feel as though their expectations and dreams have been shattered.
How different is a Ponzi scheme from what the Israeli government has been doing? The government is responsible for guaranteeing us security. So it arrests criminals who have been found to have threatened that security. Then, to provide even MORE security, i.e. through the illusion of peace or a ceasefire or talks or in response to American pressure or for a video, the government agrees to release those prisoners. The civilians who were killed by the terrorists just released are gone; they’re not coming back. But with the lives of unknown Israelis who will die in future attacks plotted and executed by those just released, we’ll pay for even MORE security. And then the whole process will be repeated. According to Wikipedia’s definition of a Ponzi scheme, “The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going.” In other words, it’s the same security we keep getting promised, but gets paid for by an “every-increasing flow of” … blood.
The main difference I see is in the currency (dollars v. human lives). For those who were shafted by Bernie Madoff, at least you still have your life and your family. I’m not sure we’ll be able to say the same to the grieving families once these Hamas prisoners are released and return to the waiting arms of their terrorist comrades.
Shimshonit 
Have you ever read Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein? Heinlein would say that the appropriate response is not to negotiate, but instead to use military force to rescue the captives. The mission might fail, and you might lose more soldier’s lives over trying to rescue only one, but you’d be making the point that you would not stand for the kidnapping of your citizens.
That makes much more sense to me than the highly dangerous game Israel has been playing. I should read some Heinlein–the Cap’n is a huge fan.
And when the military has no idea where the captives are being held, what then? What are the morale effects of it being known that if you are captured no non-military efforts will be made to secure your release?
Larry: Daniel Gordis wrote about this issue, and the effect on morale in the army if a captive is not redeemed. He has a son in the army now, and asked his youngest son (still in high school) what he would think if his elder brother were kidnapped. The younger son answered, “It would suck.”
You may say that because the younger son is not yet in the army, he doesn’t feel the direct fear that a soldier might feel. But this is some of the risk that our soldiers take. They all expect that the possibility exists that they will die in service of the State. (Some die in training accidents, without seeing a day of combat.) And they have to recognize too that they may be taken captive. It doesn’t mean that the State won’t do anything non-military to try to have them released. But they also have to realize that their life is not of greater value than the lives of countless civilians who are surely endangered by the release of thousands of terrorists with blood on their hands. It’s a difficult fact, but one that everyone must accept.
I can’t even begin to imagine the pain that the families of Shalit and the other Israeli MIAs feel every single day–the hole in their lives and the questions unanswered. But we can’t choose our enemies, and the enemies we have love to play dirty. It’s the way it is.
Something I should probably point out about the soldier kidnappings of the last few years is that Goldwasser, Regev, and Shalit were all kidnapped FROM ISRAEL. They were the victims of cross-border raids by Hizbullah and Hamas. Think for a moment–if terrorists from Canada infiltrated Derby Line, Vermont, kidnapped one or more Americans (soldiers or civilians–it wouldn’t matter), and spirited them over the border back to Canada and hid their whereabouts for years, wouldn’t that spark an international incident? Yet the rest of the world doesn’t seem to see this situation as problematic at all. Perhaps because people believe it’s so messy over here that it’s just par for the course, or because the world has lost its moral compass, I know not.
Either way, the IDF has made a point of training its soldiers better to avoid future kidnapping scenarios.
Moshe Feiglin in Where there are No Men / Bimqom She’ein Adam, discusses his experiences as a reservist patrolling Arab towns.
Basically, these soldiers had no idea what they were supposed to be doing. They were walking around Arab towns, loaded with weaponry and equipment, while Arab children would dart in and out throwing garbage or urinating from rooftops onto the soldiers.
When this didn’t stop terrorism, the IDF sent in every type of soldier they could think of, none of them with riot-control experience. When that didn’t work, they sent in elite combat troops. Feiglin makes the cryptic note that meanwhile, none of these IDF soldiers were receiving the combat training they needed for the next war…
Feiglin says that since the Israeli government didn’t consider this Arab land to be Israeli, they felt constrained against treating it like anyone would their own property. So of course the IDF soldiers looked like illegal occupiers! You would too if you let squatters into your house without a word of protest! (Feiglin’s favorite parable: squatters come into your house, and you start negotiating with them, offering them half the house in return for peace. Who will people think are the rightful owners, and who are the thieves?)
So the IDF soldiers were just a fig-leaf, used by the government to pretend that it was doing anything. Worse, after Rabin opined that IDF soldiers ought to “break the arms” of Arabs, any soldiers who actually followed Rabin’s advice were punished. And when anything went wrong, IDF commanders blamed their subordinates, ruining morale. By avoiding blame for themselves, IDF leaders were able to get on the Labor party ticket after their military careers were concluded.
So that’s the IDF for you. Anyone still wonder why I’m doing my darndest to avoid the draft?
What Israel needs to do is treat the Palestinians like they would any warring nation. That is when there will be peace. I don’t know exactly what to do, exactly how to kill the terrorists without killing civilians, but the basic point is clear: treat the Palestinians the same way America would Mexico if the latter starting launching Qasams at Texas.
By the way, I highly recommend Feiglin’s book. One of the approbations, from an Israeli university professor if I remember correctly, says his book is a better summary of Israeli history than anything from the Israeli Ministry of Truth. (Okay, that last little part was my own little gratuitous reference to Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four. The professor said “Ministry of Education.” But isn’t it so much funnier my way? :P)
If you want to understand how Israel’s political leadership hasn’t the faintest conception of what democracy is, read his book. And if it still isn’t crystal clear to you by the end, the appendix by Political Science Lecturer Raissa Epstein is dedicated to showing how Israel utilizes democratic social-contract terminology to enrobe Marxist socialist conceptions.