Are the hostages worth it?

Many Israelis are willing to accept a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a mass release of Palestinian security prisoners in return for the redemption of Israel’s remaining hostages. Many others are unwilling to accept any agreement to free the hostages that would allow Hamas to remain in control of Gaza. 

Unfortunately – but also inevitably given the psychological pressures that Israelis have had to cope with over the past year – there has been little rational discussion of the trade-offs involved in following one path or the other. The thing is, the choice that Israel makes regarding this question will affect the country – and actually the world – for decades to come. In such situations, much can be gained by taking a step back from emotional responses and trying to evaluate the options and their implications with a clear head. 

Any sensible discussion of the trade-offs involved must necessarily address a question that is central to rational decision-making and is addressed at a deep level by economists who specialize in national security policy – of whom I number. How much is a human life worth? 

You may argue that a human life is – by definition – priceless, or in other words, infinite. Unfortunately, the problem with your position is that it is morally reprehensible. To see why, consider the following example: You have the chance to save one life with a 1% chance of success but it will cost a billion lives with certainty. Should you take this chance? Well, if the value of a human life is infinite, the value of a billion lives and the value of a 1% chance of saving one human being…are identical. And you can’t rule out the option that results in a billion deaths. Uh – the right answer is obvious, and anyone who has staked out a position that – while seductive – actually makes it impossible to differentiate between right and wrong when dealing with matters of life and death has forfeited their claim to the moral high ground.

So what is the value of a human life? First, let’s establish that it exists and is clearly a number measurable in financial terms. To see why, let’s do the following thought experiment: You can save a human life and it will cost you a dime. Would you do it? Most people would say “of course!” Now, say you can save a human life, but it will cost $105 trillion, the value of world GDP in 2023. Most people would recognize that spending that much would result in the deaths of every other human being on the planet (along with their pets and farm animals). And they would say no. 

Now, consider what this means. You were willing to save someone if it cost a dime, and unwilling to save someone if it cost $105 trillion. This proves that somewhere higher than a dime and lower than $105 trillion is a sum that causes you to switch from saving a life to not doing so. The number that caused you to switch from one answer to the other is the value – expressed in monetary terms – of a human life.

So how best to understand what that number means? Well, we understood that taking $105 trillion out of the world economy will kill all 8 billion people who live on Earth. Clearly, there must be a sum that, if taken out of the world economy, will result in one death. In theory, that number should be the value of a human life – and it tells us a lot about how to think about decisions that involve life and death. The decision rule is that we should spend resources saving someone if the cost – in terms of lives lost as a result – is lower than one. If it is higher than one, then it is precisely the great value we attach to all human life that requires us to sacrifice the person in question.

Israel’s two most recent hostage deals illustrate that such swaps sometimes save lives overall and sometimes result overall in more deaths. The 2011 release of 1027 prisoners in return for Gilad Shalit undoubtedly led to a ratio of lives lost per life saved that exceeds one hundred and might even exceed one thousand. After all, Yahya Sinwar was one of those prisoners.

On the other hand, the release of 240 prisoners in return for 105 hostages in November 2023 undoubtedly saved far more Israeli lives than were subsequently lost due to the opportunity the hostage agreement’s ceasefire accorded Hamas to prepare for the Israeli onslaught that followed. So the message is not “never make hostage deals” or “always make hostage deals.” It is “analyze proposed hostage deals carefully and choose based on what path is likely to lead to less tragedy and suffering.”

This needs to inform Israeli thinking regarding a hostage deal. There is no doubt that such a deal – if achievable – will save the remaining hostages from almost certain death. There is also no doubt that allowing Hamas to reclaim its rule of Gaza will also result in deaths. The question needs to be…how many?