Of all the many bizarre elements of hostage exchange approved this week by the Israeli cabinet by a vote of 22-3, the most bizarre was that Israel negotiated as if did not matter whether Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are dead or alive. Hizbullah never provided any information concerning the condition of its two captives and did not permit any international body access to them. Thus Israel allowed itself to be placed in the position of negotiating without even knowing what it was negotiating about.
The negative implications of this approach for the future are obvious. By entering into negotiations in such circumstances, Israel lowered the standard for treatment of its POWs. Israel should instead have attempted to raise an international outcry against Hizbullah’s violation of all accepted international standards for the treatment of prisoners. In the likely event that Hizbullah showed itself immune to international pressure – something at which its excels – then Israel’s next move should have been to show that two can play this game with prisoners, and cut off all communications between Palestinian prisoners and their families.
When the Confederacy started to kill captured blacks fighting for the Union Army, President Abraham Lincoln threatened to reciprocate against Confederate prisoners. And that was the end of the matter.
The principal justification offered for the release of Samir Kuntar, an unrepentant murderer of four Israeli citizens, who has vowed to return to the battle against Israel as soon as he is released, is that IDF morale depends on soldiers knowing that everything will be done to bring them back if captured.
But it is far from clear how relevant that consideration is with respect to the return of dead bodies. At least one petition of reservists called upon the government not to offer anything in return for the bodies of any of the signatories. Moreover, it is hard to believe IDF morale will be improved by a negotiating strategy that will have the inevitable effect of removing all incentives for the proper treatment of Israeli POWs.
Worse, by treating the bodies of Israeli soldiers as valuable bargaining chips, the Israeli government has removed one of the primary incentives for captors of IDF soldiers to keep them alive. Not exactly a major morale booster.
Nor do the negative consequences of the hostage exchange end there. Israel has enhanced Hizbullah’s status in Lebanon. Nasrallah can now crow that he succeeded in doing what no one thought possible – forcing Israel to return a vicious murderer, who shot a father in the head in front of his young daughter, bashed the girl to death with the butt of his rifle, and caused the terrified wife and mother to inadvertently suffocate her infant as she hid.
The precedent of releasing murderers whose hands are dripping blood further lowers the deterrence factor against terrorists. Once terrorists knew that if captured they would spend the rest of their life rotting in an Israeli jail. No longer.
