The High Price of Ransom - What's a Terrorist Worth?

The New York Sun's Hillel Halkin addresses the ultimate price to be paid by Israel for its exchange of murderer Samir Kuntar for the bodies of two dead Israeli soldiers, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. "Predictions about the consequences of a country's behavior usually take time to come to pass. The chickens don't come home to roost from one day to the next," he writes.

Has the chicken come home to roost? It looks so, as Egypt has announced that its efforts to obtain the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit have failed because Hamas has upped the ante in view of the price Israel was willing to pay for Regev's and Goldwasser's remains.

What does Halkin suggest? Simple, new rules take effect, and the announcement would read:

"Gentlemen, the rules have changed. From now on, there will be no more bargaining over prisoners or hostages. There will be a fixed price — and it will be one of absolute parity. For one dead Israeli, you get one dead Arab. For one live Israeli, one live Arab. For any multiple of that, you get the multiple, no more and no less."

Halkin thinks the sooner the Israeli government adopts such a rule, the better off it will be. As the price of hostage taking goes up, its incentive falls.

Read "The High Price of Ransom."

Death Penalty for Terrorists- A Voice Says Yes

Discussion in Israel regarding the release of murderer Sami Kuntar continues. One little known fact about the Israel prison system is that it allows prisoners, even those who have committed heinous crimes, such as Sami Kuntar, are allowed conjugal visits, continuing education and other life improving experiences. In Kuntar's case, he enjoyed conjugal visits and fathered a child.

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, columnist Sara Honig, believes the time has come for the Israeli justice system to adopt the death penalty in cases such as Kuntar. Countering the argument that the government must have prisoners to swap or it will endanger the lives of Israelis who fall hostage to terrorists in the future, Mrs. Honig writes:

"Many in our midst will of course regurgitate the questionable claim that by imposing capital punishment we might imperil captured Israelis, whom vengeful unbridled enemies will readily kill. But the greater likelihood is that by contracting the sort of deal whereby living Kuntars are swapped for corpses, we eliminate the last enemy incentive to keep abductees alive."

I think Mrs. Honig is onto something here. Now the question is, how will Israel respond?

Boteach Asks- Is It Time For The Death Penalty for Terrorists?

Best selling author and tv personality Rabbi Shmuley Boteach says, "it is time that we articulate what few wish to, namely, that Israel must finally institute a death penalty for convicted terrorists. "

Looking at the recent release of terrorist and child killer Sami Kuntar, Boteach believes

There are times when a country must temporarily violate a principle to ensure it is upheld. Police cars speed to catch those who themselves speed on highways, thereby endangering other motorists. Surgeons cut open people's chests with knives to save their blocked arteries and stopped hearts. And just governments must sometimes take the lives of unrepentant terrorist mass-murderers to protect and uphold the infinite value of human life.

You can read his comments in the Jerusalem Post.

What do I think? Maybe Rabbi Boteach has a point. Killers such as Sami Kuntar are "martyrs" to their supporters whether they die in the attack or live long years afterwards in prison. But Judaism has always frowned on the death penalty and it is significant to note that Israel applies it only in the case of "crimes against humanity" such as participating in the murders of the Holocaust. Perhaps civilized society does need to weed itself of the most uncivilized among us.

When Mistakes Are Worth Making

Daniel Gordis offers his explanation as to the need for Israel to make the exchange of a murderer and other terrorists for the remains of two dead Israeli army reservists. It was a mistake:

But if it was a mistake, it was a calculated mistake, a mistake well worth making. It was a mistake worth making when we think about what is the real challenge facing Israel. The challenge facing Israel isn't to win the war against the Palestinians. The war can't be won. We can't eradicate them, and they won't accept our being here. The challenge that Israel faces is not to move towards peace. Peace can't be had. No - the challenge facing Israel is to learn how to live in perpetual, never-ending war, and in the face of that, to flourish, and to be a country that our kids still want to defend. And that is what we did this week.

Read When Mistakes Are Worth Making. It will move you.

On the Pro Side for Prisoner Releases

Chezi Shay was a captive of the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine from 1982 to 1985. He, therefore, writes for the JTA about the need for Israel to do whatever it must to obtain the release of its soldiers.

I am glad that the swap is taking place and that the Goldwasser and Regev families can rest.
When, heaven forbid, a soldier dies, army officials knock on the door and inform the family of the terrible news.
Here we have two families who for two years have been facing a terrible situation, waiting for that knock on the door.
Therefore, we had to do everything in order to end the distress they were facing.

Father of a Terror Victim Comments on the Prisoner Release

I have never met Ron Kehrmann but we have something in common--our daughters were murdered by terrorists.

He has written an Op-Ed distributed by the JTA in which he expresses his belief that more kidnappings will result from the exchange of terrorists, alive and dead, for two dead Israeli Army reservists.

He writes,

The mass release of murderous terrorists teaches that terror is the way to victory. But we need to show that only honest negotiations will bring peace. Then Israeli and Arab children will have a better future, and not lose their lives as a result of senseless, hate-driven acts of violence.

Trading with Terrorists

Government leaders make hard choices every day. From budgetary issues affecting taxation and the cost of living, to geo-political affecting security at home, to "hot-button" issues such as gay marriage. In the Middle East where Israel finds itself, there is no bigger hot-button issue than prisoner exchanges.

Israel's prisons are rightfully full of Palestinians and other Arabs who have committed crimes against Israelis ranging from throwing stones to riot to murder. Over the years, Israel has released hundreds of Palestinians and others from prison as part of "prisoner swaps" that were never one-to-one affairs but more like 100 Arabs for 1 Israeli, or political gifts to Arafat or Abu Mazen that would increase their credibility on the Palestinian street. From a stated policy of never negotiating with terrorists, Israel has in the past and will do so in the future.

The New York Sun runs an article by Benny Avni Hezbollah's Prisoner Swap Gambit Tests Israel that highlights Israel's decision to release a terrorist in exchange for soldiers' remains and as a possible step in releasing either the soldiers, or their remains, whose kidnapping was the spark that launched the 2006 Lebanon War.

As the father of a terror victim, I know the day is coming, not soon I hope, when my daughter's killers will be on the way out the door of their prison cells. I hope that the price paid by the other side is high enough to warrant it.