Q&A: On the Emotional Argument in the Hostage Deal
On the Emotional Argument in the Hostage Deal
Question
In the podcast with Daniel Doshi, you presented a critical position and rejected (as is your way) emotional arguments in favor of a hostage deal.
1. My question is: what non-emotional arguments could there be on the side that supports the deal?
That is the essence of the debate.
The two sides of the debate are:
Whether not to conduct negotiations with terrorism for reasons of future security / national honor / preventing motivation for future kidnappings, etc. = a rational argument.
Or to care now for the hostages, those individuals who were abandoned = an emotional argument.
Is there some other supposedly rational argument in favor of a deal?
Clearly, a cold calculation would prefer to talk about
security, and not about saving individuals.
2. Also, the reasons such as: “a doubt does not override a certainty,” etc., which supposedly feel rational, are in the end emotional.
Because what is that certainty? Saving a few individuals.
That is, one must have compassion on them and redeem those poor people who are certainly in danger.
3. What rational argument can the side that supports the deal formulate?
I heard a lawyer on the radio this morning saying that in the law books there is a sentence: the state will care for a citizen in distress and in captivity…
But that is definitely weak and sounds ridiculous compared to the arguments on the other side that speak about the security of the public.
Are we going to cling to some vague wording and in its name surrender to terror?!
4. Seemingly, even a rational person can connect to an emotional argument of this sort.
Even in the face of concerns for the security of the public,
the compassion, the concern — that is a good reason to support their release.
The feeling is that the heaviest weight one can place against opponents of the deal is supposedly emotional arguments, but ones that definitely arouse thought and basic human intuition.
We are morally obligated to care for dozens of our people who are suffering and groaning.
In summary,
let me sharpen the point: if you demand disconnecting all emotion from the discussion, then only the side that opposes the deal remains.
And perhaps indeed that is so?
But it does not seem that there is room for unequivocal certainty in this discussion.
Every citizen of the state, including the most rational ones, and even those who oppose the deal,
understands that there is another side. And there is room for hesitation on this matter.
Despite the fact that this is a side made up of 100% emotion.
My conclusion: even an argument / side in a discussion that is made entirely of emotional arguments
fills an important and necessary role in the discussion.
Answer
A strange, even bizarre, message.
Why do you think the only argument in favor of freeing the hostages is emotion? Is there no value in freeing innocent hostages? Do we have no responsibility toward them? What kind of nonsense is that? The emotion I was talking about is the approach that takes that argument as absolute and doesn’t understand that there is another side. That absolutism is rooted in emotions.
And why do you think that if the only argument is emotional that necessarily means it should be taken into account? Then there simply is no argument in favor, and that’s that.
Bizarre.
Discussion on Answer
Too bad you don’t just refer us to the source. Why recycle these immortal words of wisdom again and again?
You can topple Zionism by means of a military operation.
Israel is of course much more powerful than Hamas, and Zionism is an ideology far deeper and more grounded than the Nakba (or whatever that is), so the operation that would be required would be much harder. But for example the U.S. could do it fairly easily if it were determined. In my opinion, Israelis would be even less stubborn than Gazans. After the Azrieli towers collapse and all the prime ministers and military leaders are eliminated, we’ll all willingly emigrate to Uganda. It might even happen already once gel nail polish is no longer available.
Of course I’m not saying that Zionist fantasies in Uganda can be eradicated. Rather, Zionism for which there is some threat that its goals will be realized.
5. The idea of toppling Hamas is a bluff, because Hamas is much more an ideology than a regime, and toppling it is about like saying it would be possible to topple Zionism by means of a military operation. Therefore continuing to fight won’t really help us accomplish the mission of toppling Hamas. So it’s better to bring back the hostages, and after that move on to the real solution: transfer.