There is an apocryphal story told about the different approaches of the US and Soviet Union took to getting their diplomats back during the Lebanese Civil War. The Americans fruitlessly negotiated and failed to get their people back. The Soviets found family members of the terrorists, kidnapped them, then sliced pieces off them, mailing them to the families of the terrorists. They got their diplomats back.
I don't know if it's apocryphal. I remember seeing it on an old issue of a mainstream newspaper. Remember something about a severed penis being sent to a family member. It's a great story :)
It's a great example of the importance of escalation dominance: always be willing to go to the next level, to take pain and inflict even more on your opponent. I'm not an Israeli, and the hostages aren't my family, but my reaction to every terrorist ransom scenario is "take the people the terrorists want and summarily execute them on live television. Then find out where the terrorists are hiding
and mercilessly kill every last one of them, down to the people who open their mail, collateral damage be damned." I think that would be the last terrorist hostage taking the nation would ever suffer.
I reserve the right to be totally hypocritical if my family are (God forbid) ever kidnapped, but no one should be listening to me in that situation anyway.
It is rare to read something so perfectly correct in every aspect of its crystalline clear analysis.
It makes no sense for Israel to make a “deal” for the return of the hostages, just as it makes no sense strategically for Hamas ever to release all the hostages. Hamas uses the hostages as protection and currency, they’d have to be irrational to release them all.
The spectacle of the hostage negotiations is a mirage crafted by US diplomats for their own purposes - not because any “deal” will or can ever be reached.
“If walking away from a deal is advantageous to him politically, it is presumably because it represents the interests of people in his coalition, who in turn represent a significant part of Israel's population.”
My understanding is that Israel is forgoing any action to remove Bibi due to the active state of war. Thus there is no coalition worth considering when it is the very state of war whose continuity retains Bibi’s status. That I believe is the incentive structure people are criticizing.
So why do people think its advantageous for Bibi to sabotage the hostage deal? Either it's because he personally thinks the deal is a bad idea or its because he's appeasing some people. Who are those people, according to his critics, and are they not representative of a significant fraction public opinion in Israel?
The incentive structure is for Bibi to **prolong the conflict**. So long as the hostages remain hostages that is a factor in continuing the war. That is why it is less-so about domestic coalition and opposition parties at this moment. If Bibi could have a 10 year conflict he would pull the trigger. That is, if it didn’t directly involve Iran. Because in times of crisis states go into a far less immediately democratic process.
Nonetheless you do make excellent points in this piece and I am not objecting to them. However there is a possibility of treating with Palestine itself as a sovereign rational entity, and in that light the game changes from zero-sum to positive-sum. Such a consideration would however necessarily bypass the current governing party of Gaza and appeal directly to the people. If the theory holds that a nation exists there which may evolve into a sovereign state, such negotiation should be possible. If not, Israel will have its conflict until Hamas is exterminated.
I see. The argument is more that it’s in his interest for the war to go on. If the war went on till 2026, do you think he would do things to delay or subvert the election process ?
Whatever one thinks Bibi should do, there's very legitimate reasons to not give into Hamas terrorists' demands. Hamas is making demands to help themselves survive and continue to attack Israel; they are not making demands for the benefit of Palestinians. Bibi is not prolonging the war, he is pursuing military goals to defeat Hamas, destroying the tunnels and eliminating terrorists. Top on the list is Sinwar, previously released to free Gilad Shalit, which I imagine greatly impacts Bibi's calculus regarding current hostage negotiations.
Bibi has neither canceled nor delayed elections and will not. He was Prime Minister in the late 90s, lost and returned to the position in 2009. Since then, he's managed to stay in power through 7 elections, building coalitions each time with other parties to make a majority in the Knesset.
The next election is 2026, as you mentioned, but could happen earlier. Two parties have already left his coalition and if 4 more members leave, he'll lose his majority, triggering an early election.
I expect it will happen next year and Bibi will be out, but we'll see. The elections will definitely be interesting, the next Knesset could look very different. I haven't seen much speculation; I guess everyone is focused on the present.
I am not so familiar with it as to speculate. It would depend greatly on the nature of the conflict at that time as to whether he could easily do so like was done in Ukraine. However in the case of Ukraine this was easy to justify because it’s currently impossible to hold elections across all of its rightful territories, and they must strive to reduce groupings of civilians at all times. The former argument doesn’t work at all for Bibi and the latter argument, eh, not really. However wartime is its own beast always with novel circumstances.
The Israeli people do recognize the culpability of Bibi in this new status quo. It remains to be seen however if Israel's electorate will learn to respect the territorial integrity of its neighbor. Another factor in addressing your question is the outcome of the election in the US. Bibi will be emboldened to subvert democracy there if it happens here.
Not even gonna get into the veracity of that because it’s immaterial. There is no justification for ethnic cleansing which is what Israel is doing every day.
Isn’t the more likely explanation with Ukraine that it allows zelensky to hold on to power and the war to continue.
If anything the disputed territories probably contain an electorate that would be less gung ho about the war, so I don’t see that as a problem for having elections. And anyway, there is a 0% chance of retaking them so you’re essentially arguing for never having elections again.
If they had elections there is a chance zelensky would lose power. Or if not that specific policies might need to change (conscription for instance).
Your assertions are incredible and you are clearly operating on an agenda antithetical to the West making you an enemy of my country. I do not engage in dialogue with bad faith trolls.
If your reaction is "what similar situation?", you're up to something: Israel and Ukraine are reacting so differently that one might barely notice the similarities of the underlying problems. Russia has amassed a significant number of Ukrainian de-facto hostages: prisoners of war misclassified as criminals and subjected to show trials, civilians filtered out of the occupied Kherson oblast, orphaned and supposedly-orphaned children brought into Russian orphanages... The Ukrainian government, however, never let this become the center of their political life, nor did Ukrainian society demand them to. There are no ribbons, missing posters, video screenings... the focus is instead on the murder and the destruction. As a consequence, prisoner exchanges follow a 1-for-1 pattern or even better ones for Ukraine (one single Medvedchuk was swapped for several Ukrainians: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/ukrainian-putin-ally-viktor-medvedchuk-exchanged-for-200-azov-battalion-fighters-zelenskiy-says ). Any attempts by Russia to use the hostages to split Ukrainian society have fallen flat.
Unfortunately, with regard to hostage negotiations I think you're right. One thing that would change the calculus would be strong, harsh, worldwide condemnation of the hostage takers that make them pay a political price, but sadly it seems like the opposite is what's happened.
Thank you for this clear and well-written piece on the stakes in hostage negotiation. I found this line interesting: "[T]hey have convinced themselves that their lives, while insignificant in the cosmic scheme of things, are worth protecting, because they are instrumental as individuals, in waging the holy war effectively."
I wonder if this could somehow become the leverage in negotiations. Making jihadists feel that their deaths will be meaningless if they don't negotiate. Simply avoiding death is not an incentive for them, because they believe their deaths will be meaningful -- so the meaningfulness of their deaths might be a much better wedge.
Umm isn't a hostage negotiation almost the prototypical example of a non-zero sum game? The total payouts when the hostage is ransomed are higher than when they are not so not zero sum.
There is an apocryphal story told about the different approaches of the US and Soviet Union took to getting their diplomats back during the Lebanese Civil War. The Americans fruitlessly negotiated and failed to get their people back. The Soviets found family members of the terrorists, kidnapped them, then sliced pieces off them, mailing them to the families of the terrorists. They got their diplomats back.
It's a fractal sum game! Soviets knew better than the Koolaid-drinking kids of Ivy League universities.
I don't know if it's apocryphal. I remember seeing it on an old issue of a mainstream newspaper. Remember something about a severed penis being sent to a family member. It's a great story :)
It's a great example of the importance of escalation dominance: always be willing to go to the next level, to take pain and inflict even more on your opponent. I'm not an Israeli, and the hostages aren't my family, but my reaction to every terrorist ransom scenario is "take the people the terrorists want and summarily execute them on live television. Then find out where the terrorists are hiding
and mercilessly kill every last one of them, down to the people who open their mail, collateral damage be damned." I think that would be the last terrorist hostage taking the nation would ever suffer.
I reserve the right to be totally hypocritical if my family are (God forbid) ever kidnapped, but no one should be listening to me in that situation anyway.
It is rare to read something so perfectly correct in every aspect of its crystalline clear analysis.
It makes no sense for Israel to make a “deal” for the return of the hostages, just as it makes no sense strategically for Hamas ever to release all the hostages. Hamas uses the hostages as protection and currency, they’d have to be irrational to release them all.
The spectacle of the hostage negotiations is a mirage crafted by US diplomats for their own purposes - not because any “deal” will or can ever be reached.
“If walking away from a deal is advantageous to him politically, it is presumably because it represents the interests of people in his coalition, who in turn represent a significant part of Israel's population.”
My understanding is that Israel is forgoing any action to remove Bibi due to the active state of war. Thus there is no coalition worth considering when it is the very state of war whose continuity retains Bibi’s status. That I believe is the incentive structure people are criticizing.
So why do people think its advantageous for Bibi to sabotage the hostage deal? Either it's because he personally thinks the deal is a bad idea or its because he's appeasing some people. Who are those people, according to his critics, and are they not representative of a significant fraction public opinion in Israel?
The incentive structure is for Bibi to **prolong the conflict**. So long as the hostages remain hostages that is a factor in continuing the war. That is why it is less-so about domestic coalition and opposition parties at this moment. If Bibi could have a 10 year conflict he would pull the trigger. That is, if it didn’t directly involve Iran. Because in times of crisis states go into a far less immediately democratic process.
Nonetheless you do make excellent points in this piece and I am not objecting to them. However there is a possibility of treating with Palestine itself as a sovereign rational entity, and in that light the game changes from zero-sum to positive-sum. Such a consideration would however necessarily bypass the current governing party of Gaza and appeal directly to the people. If the theory holds that a nation exists there which may evolve into a sovereign state, such negotiation should be possible. If not, Israel will have its conflict until Hamas is exterminated.
I see. The argument is more that it’s in his interest for the war to go on. If the war went on till 2026, do you think he would do things to delay or subvert the election process ?
Whatever one thinks Bibi should do, there's very legitimate reasons to not give into Hamas terrorists' demands. Hamas is making demands to help themselves survive and continue to attack Israel; they are not making demands for the benefit of Palestinians. Bibi is not prolonging the war, he is pursuing military goals to defeat Hamas, destroying the tunnels and eliminating terrorists. Top on the list is Sinwar, previously released to free Gilad Shalit, which I imagine greatly impacts Bibi's calculus regarding current hostage negotiations.
Bibi has neither canceled nor delayed elections and will not. He was Prime Minister in the late 90s, lost and returned to the position in 2009. Since then, he's managed to stay in power through 7 elections, building coalitions each time with other parties to make a majority in the Knesset.
The next election is 2026, as you mentioned, but could happen earlier. Two parties have already left his coalition and if 4 more members leave, he'll lose his majority, triggering an early election.
I expect it will happen next year and Bibi will be out, but we'll see. The elections will definitely be interesting, the next Knesset could look very different. I haven't seen much speculation; I guess everyone is focused on the present.
I am not so familiar with it as to speculate. It would depend greatly on the nature of the conflict at that time as to whether he could easily do so like was done in Ukraine. However in the case of Ukraine this was easy to justify because it’s currently impossible to hold elections across all of its rightful territories, and they must strive to reduce groupings of civilians at all times. The former argument doesn’t work at all for Bibi and the latter argument, eh, not really. However wartime is its own beast always with novel circumstances.
The Israeli people do recognize the culpability of Bibi in this new status quo. It remains to be seen however if Israel's electorate will learn to respect the territorial integrity of its neighbor. Another factor in addressing your question is the outcome of the election in the US. Bibi will be emboldened to subvert democracy there if it happens here.
> It remains to be seen however if Israel's electorate will learn to respect the territorial integrity of its neighbor.
Well the problem is the neighbor in question doesn't respect Israel's territorial integrity.
Not even gonna get into the veracity of that because it’s immaterial. There is no justification for ethnic cleansing which is what Israel is doing every day.
Isn’t the more likely explanation with Ukraine that it allows zelensky to hold on to power and the war to continue.
If anything the disputed territories probably contain an electorate that would be less gung ho about the war, so I don’t see that as a problem for having elections. And anyway, there is a 0% chance of retaking them so you’re essentially arguing for never having elections again.
If they had elections there is a chance zelensky would lose power. Or if not that specific policies might need to change (conscription for instance).
Your assertions are incredible and you are clearly operating on an agenda antithetical to the West making you an enemy of my country. I do not engage in dialogue with bad faith trolls.
Great article, thankyou.
Just a few days ago I have compared this situation with a similar one playing out in Ukraine: https://substack.com/@darijgrinberg450796/note/c-67520387
If your reaction is "what similar situation?", you're up to something: Israel and Ukraine are reacting so differently that one might barely notice the similarities of the underlying problems. Russia has amassed a significant number of Ukrainian de-facto hostages: prisoners of war misclassified as criminals and subjected to show trials, civilians filtered out of the occupied Kherson oblast, orphaned and supposedly-orphaned children brought into Russian orphanages... The Ukrainian government, however, never let this become the center of their political life, nor did Ukrainian society demand them to. There are no ribbons, missing posters, video screenings... the focus is instead on the murder and the destruction. As a consequence, prisoner exchanges follow a 1-for-1 pattern or even better ones for Ukraine (one single Medvedchuk was swapped for several Ukrainians: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/ukrainian-putin-ally-viktor-medvedchuk-exchanged-for-200-azov-battalion-fighters-zelenskiy-says ). Any attempts by Russia to use the hostages to split Ukrainian society have fallen flat.
Unfortunately, with regard to hostage negotiations I think you're right. One thing that would change the calculus would be strong, harsh, worldwide condemnation of the hostage takers that make them pay a political price, but sadly it seems like the opposite is what's happened.
Thank you for this clear and well-written piece on the stakes in hostage negotiation. I found this line interesting: "[T]hey have convinced themselves that their lives, while insignificant in the cosmic scheme of things, are worth protecting, because they are instrumental as individuals, in waging the holy war effectively."
I wonder if this could somehow become the leverage in negotiations. Making jihadists feel that their deaths will be meaningless if they don't negotiate. Simply avoiding death is not an incentive for them, because they believe their deaths will be meaningful -- so the meaningfulness of their deaths might be a much better wedge.
Umm isn't a hostage negotiation almost the prototypical example of a non-zero sum game? The total payouts when the hostage is ransomed are higher than when they are not so not zero sum.