It's hard to refuse to ransom an Israeli kidnapped by terrorists, but sometimes one has to do so.

This was not an easy blog to write.
If the kidnappers win, if they manage to bring about a deal on their terms, they send a clear message: Israel may have atomic bombs and a mighty air force, but it lacks the willpower necessary to survive.

Today a government committee is meeting in Jerusalem to decide on "easing" the criteria Israel uses in freeing convicted terrorists.  The object is to be able to free murderers or direct accessories to murder in return for Gilad Schalit, who's been held captive in Gaza for over a year and a half.  If the deal is done, Hamas and Islamic Jihad will be able to rack up a victory and concentrate on their next kidnapping.

It's not easy for an open society to deal with political kidnappings.  The pain of the victims' families cannot be wished away.  From the perspective of the families themselves, it makes sense to use their pain for PR purposes, pressing the government to cut a deal.  After all, they didn't ask for their loved ones to be kidnapped; if the Israeli government wants to make a point of opposing blackmail, let it do so at someone else's expense, not theirs.  Here in Israel, supporting the release of the kidnapped soldiers is portrayed as both patriotic and humane, which is one reason why Prime Minister Olmert's spinmasters are pressing him to do a deal.  Yet while the motives of simple, ordinary people who support the upcoming Schalit deal cannot be impugned, the future may reveal that it is a big mistake.

Political kidnappings are a great tactic for the weaker side.  Even if a terrorist group cannot beat its enemies in open combat, it can always pull off a kidnapping.  Kidnapping puts both sides on the same level:  The contest is not about who has more brute physical force but about relative toughness and determination.  If the kidnappers win, that is, if they manage to bring about a deal on their terms and demonstrate that kidnapping is a profitable tactic over the long term, they send a clear message:  Israel may have atomic bombs and a mighty air force, but it lacks the willpower necessary to survive.  Eventually it will fall.  If impending deal goes through, that is the message that Palestinians and the wider Arab world will internalize.

For these reasons, I oppose the upcoming deal with Schalit, hard as it is to say so.  Cutting this deal condemns us to more kidnappings in the future.
Never release, in exchange for an Israeli kidnap victim, a terrorist who was in jail at the time the kidnapping took place. Terrorists must know that they can never, never get someone released by kidnapping a hostage.

This doesn't mean I oppose all prisoner-exchange deals in principle—as long as they do not validate political kidnappings as a strategy.  For that to happen, I believe Israel ought to adhere to two principles:
a) Never release, in exchange for an Israeli kidnap victim, a terrorist who was in jail at the time the kidnapping took place.  Terrorists must know that they can never, never get someone released by kidnapping a hostage.  Only terrorists taken captive after the kidnap victim was abducted can eventually be released.  It is better to forego a deal, even if it means abandoning a particular kidnap victim to his fate, rather than to abet the enemy in making a working strategy out of political kidnappings.
b) As far as possible, Israel should define, in response to a kidnapping, the number and characteristics of the group of terrorists it proposes to release in exchange for a kidnap victim, e.g.:  500 residents of Gaza, married and over the age of 25.  Then it should go get them—provided, of course, that they are actual terrorists.

This will not always lead to the release of hostages.  If, for example, an Israeli citizen was kidnapped from Europe to Iran, it would be neither possible nor wise to try and "go get" Iranian terrorists to exchange for him.  Refusing to ransom a kidnapping victim is hard,  but sometimes it must be done, or else we'll have a kidnapping every day.  Many years ago Israel captured two terrorist leaders in Lebanon, Mustafa Dirani and Shaykh Obaid, intending to exchange them for Ron Arad.  Whoever held Arad didn't take the bait.  The strategy works best when it is applied to large numbers of terrorist captives, whose relatives can exert pressure on terrorist leaders just as the relatives of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, kidnapped by Hizbullah, and Gilad Schalit, kidnapped into Gaza, exert pressure on Israel's leaders.  Ironically, this strategy could have worked for Goldwasser, Regev and Schalit.  Only the culpable foolhardiness and timidity of Israel's current government prevented the attempt from being made.
Refusing to ransom a kidnapping victim is hard, but sometimes it must be done, or else we'll have a kidnapping every day.

Today Israel's army regularly makes deep incursions into the Gaza Strip.  It could have done so earlier.  It could have defined as one of its objectives taking members of Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad captive, concentrating if possible on fathers and elder sons who support families.  If Hamas wanted them back, it would have to release 
Schalit.

The policy I have suggested exposes another aspect of Israel's thoughtless and irresponsible approach to the Second Lebanon War.  If one object of the war was to free Goldwasser and Regev, it should be a no-brainer to figure out that one of the military objectives of the war ought to have been to capture hundreds of Hizbullah prisoners of war.  The Israeli army's original plan for operations against Hizbullah called for penetrating deep into Lebanon and setting up a cordon between Hizbullah's main forces near the Israeli border and its main bases in central and northern Lebanon.  That would have made mass captures possible.

Instead, a rash Chief of Staff (Dan Halutz) promised an unthinking Prime Minister (Olmert)
It should have been a no-brainer to figure out that one of the objectives of the Lebanon War was to capture hundreds of Hizbullah prisoners of war.
that he would achieve all the war's objectives by aerial bombing.  Neither of them seems to have stopped for a minute to think about the real objectives of their war or what they would have to accomplish in order to realize them.

The upcoming Schalit deal demonstrates once again Olmert's lack of capacity for strategic thinking.  According to Olmert we're supposed to be in "reinforce Abu Mazen" mode now.  Yet compared to Abu Mazen, to whom Olmert did the paltry favor of releasing a few hundred prisoners, most of them common or garden crooks,  Ismail Haniya of the Hamas will be able to rack up the release of many hundreds more prisoners, including for the first time murderers or accessories to murder.  That will really send a signal to ordinary Palestinians whom they should place their bets on.