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Above all else, the hostage deal stands as a rebuke of the tired notion that one does not negotiate with terrorists — state or non-state alike — to free the unjustly detained. On the moral plane, the argument should be self-evident, especially for democracies: While autocrats can shrug, citizens’ lives and freedom are of paramount importance to democratically elected officials. This is as it should be. Part of the essence of being a citizen of a democracy is that your welfare matters to your country and its leaders.
Both Israel and the United States have negotiated with hostage-takers to free their citizens in the past, although usually on a much smaller scale. In 2006, Hamas captured an Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit, releasing him five years later in exchange for about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Critics of negotiations like to point to Israel’s daring 1976 commando raid, which freed more than 100 hostages being held by Palestinian and German hijackers in Entebbe, Uganda, as a better model. They argue that negotiations, such as the Shalit trade, emboldened hostage-taking. Indeed, Hamas itself has said that it hoped the Oct. 7 raid would produce ample hostages that would compel Israel to free all of its Palestinian prisoners.
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In this, the critics have a partial point: Deterrence matters, and hostage-taking has not been sufficiently disincentivized. My Post Opinions colleagues and I have reported on the upsurge in hostage-taking, especially in the past few years. But the world is thus far doing very little in response.
Hamas’s brazen abductions have focused the world’s attention not merely because of their scale, but also because the victims come from across the world — more than three dozen nationalities were represented among the estimated 239 initially abducted. The fact that a substantial number were women, children and elderly people further drove global attention on the standoff. This hostage crisis was not just an Israeli problem but also very much a global one.
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Getting deterrence right is no simple matter. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said military action put more pressure on Hamas to come to the table and that continued hostilities could yield further breakthroughs. That might or might not be true in this case, but it does not address deterrence credibly: States are unlikely to declare total war on hostage-takers every time their citizens are abducted, as Israel has done this time. And of course, the hostages are by no means the only reason for Israel’s military response.
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There is therefore an urgent need to come up with a comprehensive hostage strategy, to be pursued by the world’s democracies and other friendly governments, to cultivate deterrence options. It’s critical that the problem be approached holistically, not as a series of one-off outrages — which is how most countries approach each new case today. To that end, intelligence agencies need to proactively and collaboratively identify perpetrators, and apply concerted pressure on the hostage-takers and the states that harbor them.
Penalties must be severe. Travel bans, deportations and asset seizures are one piece of the puzzle that are starting to net results. So is prosecution, where feasible. The deportation of the human rights abusers and hostage planners’ relatives living in the West is low-hanging fruit that has yet to be tried in earnest despite proposed legislation that would target them. The idea is to hurt the perpetrators, not the ordinary subjects under their rule.
Iran is a good case study. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Intelligence Organization should be targeted. Hossein Taeb, its former chief and the architect of the Islamic republic’s hostage-taking scheme, who still wields considerable influence, should be singled out. Many officials in Iran don’t travel abroad, so catching and prosecuting them will be difficult. But going after them and their families will start to have a salutary effect.
Israel’s goal of neutralizing Hamas is legitimate, but the cost in innocent Palestinian civilian lives is tragic, unacceptable and ultimately counterproductive. And it certainly does nothing to combat future hostage-taking. Our common humanity demands freeing innocent people being used as political or military tools, but not at the expense of other innocents.
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Nearly every aspect of the ongoing conflict in Gaza has been a tragic disaster, except for the recent negotiations that led to the release of hostages. That deal was no failure. Freeing more than 100 people is a success by any metric. But even more critically, the effort should stand as a wake-up call to the world about the urgent need to combat the scourge of hostage-taking, a phenomenon that has only become more prevalent in recent years.
Above all else, the hostage deal stands as a rebuke of the tired notion that one does not negotiate with terrorists — state or non-state alike — to free the unjustly detained. On the moral plane, the argument should be self-evident, especially for democracies: While autocrats can shrug, citizens’ lives and freedom are of paramount importance to democratically elected officials. This is as it should be. Part of the essence of being a citizen of a democracy is that your welfare matters to your country and its leaders.
Both Israel and the United States have negotiated with hostage-takers to free their citizens in the past, although usually on a much smaller scale. In 2006, Hamas captured an Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit, releasing him five years later in exchange for about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Critics of negotiations like to point to Israel’s daring 1976 commando raid, which freed more than 100 hostages being held by Palestinian and German hijackers in Entebbe, Uganda, as a better model. They argue that negotiations, such as the Shalit trade, emboldened hostage-taking. Indeed, Hamas itself has said that it hoped the Oct. 7 raid would produce ample hostages that would compel Israel to free all of its Palestinian prisoners.
In this, the critics have a partial point: Deterrence matters, and hostage-taking has not been sufficiently disincentivized. My Post Opinions colleagues and I have reported on the upsurge in hostage-taking, especially in the past few years. But the world is thus far doing very little in response.
Hamas’s brazen abductions have focused the world’s attention not merely because of their scale, but also because the victims come from across the world — more than three dozen nationalities were represented among the estimated 239 initially abducted. The fact that a substantial number were women, children and elderly people further drove global attention on the standoff. This hostage crisis was not just an Israeli problem but also very much a global one.
Getting deterrence right is no simple matter. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said military action put more pressure on Hamas to come to the table and that continued hostilities could yield further breakthroughs. That might or might not be true in this case, but it does not address deterrence credibly: States are unlikely to declare total war on hostage-takers every time their citizens are abducted, as Israel has done this time. And of course, the hostages are by no means the only reason for Israel’s military response.
There is therefore an urgent need to come up with a comprehensive hostage strategy, to be pursued by the world’s democracies and other friendly governments, to cultivate deterrence options. It’s critical that the problem be approached holistically, not as a series of one-off outrages — which is how most countries approach each new case today. To that end, intelligence agencies need to proactively and collaboratively identify perpetrators, and apply concerted pressure on the hostage-takers and the states that harbor them.
Penalties must be severe. Travel bans, deportations and asset seizures are one piece of the puzzle that are starting to net results. So is prosecution, where feasible. The deportation of the human rights abusers and hostage planners’ relatives living in the West is low-hanging fruit that has yet to be tried in earnest despite proposed legislation that would target them. The idea is to hurt the perpetrators, not the ordinary subjects under their rule.
Iran is a good case study. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Intelligence Organization should be targeted. Hossein Taeb, its former chief and the architect of the Islamic republic’s hostage-taking scheme, who still wields considerable influence, should be singled out. Many officials in Iran don’t travel abroad, so catching and prosecuting them will be difficult. But going after them and their families will start to have a salutary effect.
Israel’s goal of neutralizing Hamas is legitimate, but the cost in innocent Palestinian civilian lives is tragic, unacceptable and ultimately counterproductive. And it certainly does nothing to combat future hostage-taking. Our common humanity demands freeing innocent people being used as political or military tools, but not at the expense of other innocents.
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