Question

Hello Rabbi. I’d be interested to know what you think about the following two arguments against deals with Hamas (from Professor Danny Orbach):
There are two decisive arguments for why negotiations with Hamas over the hostages must not be allowed, and certainly why no deal should be reached with it—the small argument and the big argument. The small argument says that a deal would definitely endanger the lives of thousands and even tens of thousands of people. The big argument says that it would endanger the lives of millions, and even the existence of Israeli-Jewish society as a whole.
 
1. Let’s start with the small argument. Its logic is simple and clear—the willingness to negotiate over the release of hostages encourages terrorist organizations to continue and intensify kidnapping operations. By contrast, an absolute refusal to conduct such negotiations would hurt the desire to kidnap people. Usually, people respond to this argument with the following line, delivered with a mix of cynicism and certainty that gives it rhetorical force: “Obviously nothing will eliminate our enemies’ desire to carry out kidnappings.” That claim has no legs to stand on, and it belongs to a series of absurd statements, my favorite of which is Peres’s line: “In the age of missiles, territory no longer matters.” In reality, there is every reason to assume that refusing to negotiate deals with kidnappers would prevent future kidnappings. The logic behind this claim is simple—kidnapping is a hard, expensive, resource-devouring business. A terrorist organization needs a special effort in order to plan kidnapping operations. It has to assign the mission to its best, most skilled, and most disciplined fighters, thereby pulling them away from other vital missions. Holding, guarding, and hiding hostages is a headache that requires special effort. Therefore, a terrorist organization will engage in kidnappings only if it believes that the benefit it will gain will, with very high probability, exceed the investment by a wide margin. And reality clearly proves this assumption. Nowadays kidnappings are a very rare tactic despite all the conflicts and hostilities around the world, because strong and developed countries do not allow themselves to be extorted by kidnappers—al-Qaeda learned this the hard way. Only one developed country—Israel—is the exception here, and on the hostage issue it behaves contrary to all logic. But it is reasonable to assume that if it changes course, and if its enemies understand that there is a consensus in Israeli society that it is better to sacrifice the hostages than to humiliate ourselves in negotiations for their release, kidnappings would cease entirely.
 
2. But let us assume that for sentimental reasons Israeli society decides instead to save today’s hostages at the cost of the lives of many more people in the future. Even such a “values-based” choice does not pass the test of logic, because besides the small argument there is also the big argument. Not only do hostage deals endanger those people who will be kidnapped in the future—they endanger the existence of society and the state in general. I have written about this before, but it is worth repeating my argument. Every framework for a deal with Hamas, even the softest and most favorable one from Israel’s perspective, includes not only the release of criminals but also some degree of guarantees for Hamas and its people. In practice, every deal includes an element of saving Hamas from total destruction. And such a result would endanger Israel strategically. Because it would become clear that a tiny, insignificant organization carried out a simulation of total genocide and managed to escape a sentence of total destruction thanks to its possession of hostages. The unavoidable conclusion of everyone watching and involved would be that kidnapping is a guarantee for every enemy of Israel against total destruction. And that means the price of attacking Israel drops dramatically. After all, the worst that can happen to any attacker, if he is holding hostages, is a draw. And the attacker will always be able to hold hostages, because in a world with freedom of movement, both within countries and between them, there is no physical way to prevent kidnappings once the will to carry them out exists. You are not going to assign a personal security guard to every citizen. This would lead to growing willingness to attack Israel and to wider circles joining the armed struggle against it. In practice, Israel would be attacked and made to bleed constantly, without pause. And given the axis’s superiority in population, territory, and diplomatic influence, no military, economic, or technological superiority will save Israel from death by prolonged bleeding—a death that will most likely come sooner rather than later.
By contrast, exacting a price from Hamas that is, from their standpoint, utterly unacceptable would reduce the desire and willingness to make Israel bleed.
 
It follows from all this that there is no way to excuse or justify the ongoing saga of negotiations over a deal with Hamas. The government made a grave mistake when it listed the release of the hostages among the war’s objectives and when it began negotiating about it. We will yet hold the government accountable for that mistake. In the meantime, the only thing saving it is that the opposition is behaving even worse, and seeks to add to the crime of negotiating over a deal the sin of actually reaching one. Let us hope their wishes are frustrated.