Why Does Israel Negotiate Such Terrible Hostage Deals?

Breaking the cycle of crap deals, pain, and suffering

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Why Does Israel Suck at Hostage Negotiations?

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Right now the police are finally clearing the protests at Columbia, and while it’s good to see some action finally being taken after numerous videos of harassment and violence occurred, that’s not where my mind is at all.

Police preparing to arrest Columbia protestors

I am thinking about the Israeli hostages in Gaza. I am thinking about the fact that they are being tortured everyday and that many have already been killed in captivity. I am thinking about what it must feel like for their families to endure this psychological torture on a daily and how their lives must be shattered. I am thinking about the IDF soldiers and reservists waiting on the likely call that they’ll need to head to Rafah to try to free our brothers and sisters. I am thinking about how many soldiers we will lose during that heroic mission that seems inevitable.

How did we get here and how can we ensure we never end up here again when this is all over?

An argument can be made our radical desire to free hostages at nearly any cost, our Kryptonite, is deeply rooted in our history. Religious Jews recite the Amidah (a Jewish prayer) three times a day that references “freeing of captives.” Also, returning hostages, even if just their bodies, is important for Jewish burial rituals.

Sinwar, the current Hamas leader and former Israeli prisoner, clearly discovered hostages are Israel’s Achilles heel by studying his predecessors. He learned we have an undying commitment to never leave each other behind, including our soldiers who Israel generally conscripts unlike most volunteer armies. No one would want to show up for duty if they thought they might be taken hostage and abandoned. Sinwar used these insights to plan an attack so heinous that he knew it would force the Israeli military to react with intensity to recover hostages.

By putting military infrastructure in civilian areas, Hamas then used their own people as shields to increase the likelihood of civilian casualties and to create a humanitarian crisis (albeit an exaggerated one) that he knew would awaken his biggest asset, hatred for Jews around the globe. We must admit this is a smart plan, albeit an evil one. If we are going to be victorious, we need to understand how to stop Palestinian terror organizations from running this playbook on us again, and again, and again, as they’ve claimed is there intention.

Before we delve into the history, it’s worth noting the false equivalency between Palestinians targeting predominantly civilians and off duty soldiers and treating them inhumanely, and Israel arresting Palestinians that have committed crimes and keeping them healthy while they serve their sentences. In fact, Israel actually saved Sinwar’s life with a brain surgery to rid him of cancer (proof that no good deed ever goes unpunished). That said, I do also believe the knowledge that Israel is likely to have to engage in these horribly lopsided prisoner exchanges does create a subconscious incentive to jail Palestinians for potentially less severe crimes. It’s clear this cycle of endless hostage taking, raids, and lopsided negotiations benefits no one.

Let’s look back at past deals between Palestinian terror organizations and Israel to understand our triumphs and defeats in more detail to see what we can learn.

Timeline of hostage negotiations

🔷1968 - Palestinian Liberation Org (PLO) hijacked an Israeli plane going to Rome from Tel Aviv and diverted it to Algeria with 100 passengers on board. Israel released 37 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the passengers.

🔷1972 - Munich Olympic Games: Black September (Palestinian terror group) broke into the Olympic village and killed 2 Israelis and captured 9 others. They demanded 234 Palestinian prisoners be released and some German terrorists for good measure. In a failed rescue attempt all the hostages were killed. Israel retaliated by bombing Palestinian liberation organization (PLO) bases in Syria and Lebanon and assassinating those who planned the attack.

🔷1976 - Entebbe: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked a plane from Tel Aviv to Paris (you’ll notice a theme here). The plane refueled in Libya before heading to Uganda. There were 258 people on board initially. Some were released until around 100 Israelis were left, who the hostage takers said they would exchange for 53 prisoners. Israelis refused to negotiate and Bibi’s brother Yonatan led Operation Thunderbolt, freeing most of the hostages and killing the terrorists.

🔷1978 - Coastal Road Massacre: 11 members of Palestinian nation Fatah group, took control of two buses with 71 hostages on board. Israel responded with a high stakes operations that ended with 38 hostages killed (including 13 children and most of the hijackers killed.

🔷1982 - Lebanon War: Fatah kidnapped six Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and in 1983 they were exchanged for 4,500 Palestinian prisoners

🔷1985 - Jibril Agreement: PFLP negotiated the release of 1,150 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for three Israeli soldiers that had been kidnapped.

🔷2006 - Gilad Shalit was captured after his tank was attacked and two of his crewmates were killed. He was held by a consortium of terror groups including Hamas. His family’s campaign garnered unprecedented support and more then 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, many that had committed serious crimes (including the current leader of Hamas, Sinwar) were exchanged to free Gilad in 2011.

Gilad Shalit, before capture at 19.

What can we learn from this history?

#1 Palestinian terror organizations really like taking hostages

I mean, they seem to be doing it all the time and all over the place, so I think we should call it out. It’s also worth noting that the history of political Islam and terrorism being deeply intwined is not unique to Palestinians, but let’s not get sidetracked right now.

#2 Israel does not have a consistent policy for how to handle hostage situations

Israel sometimes has negotiated (generally poorly) and sometimes gone in hard and been willing to risk collateral damage in rescue attempts. It does seem more recent history shows that there’s a preference for trying to negotiate, which seems to be incentivizing the act of hostage taking. Worse, most people unfamiliar with the conflict conflate Palestinian prisoners in Israel as hostages, irrespective of the crimes they committed, and ‘both sides’ the crap out of the issue, ignoring blatant terrorism.

It doesn’t seem to make sense to take a bunch of proven terrorists, have them hang out in prison for years or decades plotting evil shit, and then release thousands of them thinking we’re smart enough to figure it out later. I’ve seen the movie the Usual Suspects and I don’t remember that strategy working so great for the cops.

As much as it pains me to say it, especially right now in our current situation, our policy should be we do not negotiate. Period. End of sentence. In the long term, I believe this will lessen human suffering, because it will be known that hostage taking never yields positive outcomes. That said, if it was a family member of mine, I don’t know the lengths I’d be willing to go to in order to free them. There’s almost no price I wouldn’t pay. I realize this is a hypercritical stance, which is why the Israeli government must be strong when we as individuals cannot be.

I don’t know another way to break this crap cycle of violence and pain that serves neither Israelis or Palestinians. Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments if you have better ideas. I hope you do.

Sources:
Police Clear Columbia Protests https://www.kiro7.com/news/police-clear-pro/PN5PIAGAWPF3DHKVX6AP4FTUCQ/

Israel has no choice but to conduct Rafah operations https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-gaza-live-updates-hamas-040300522.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

History of israel hostage negotiations https://news.sky.com/story/israels-long-history-of-hostage-negotiations-and-how-its-dealt-with-them-in-the-past-12986095

History of prisoner swaps part 2 https://globalaffairs.org/bluemarble/history-hostage-and-prisoner-swaps-israeli-palestinian-conflict

History of prisoner swaps part 3 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/top-10-hostage-swap-deals-between-israel-and-palestinians/3063381

Sinwar Brain surgery from Israel https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israel-treated-hamas-gaza-leader-for-brain-cancer-in-prison/ar-AA1jBKhm#:~:text=Yahya%20Sinwar%2C%20the%20leader%20of%20Hamas%20responsible%20for,prisoner%20exchange%20and%20returned%20to%20violence%20against%20Israelis.