Taking an Israeli hostage should be a death sentence

Taking an Israeli hostage should be a death sentence.  Israeli policy needs to shift towards implementing this practice to the degree that it results in wide-scale deterrence.

A recent article in the “Today in Israeli History” section of the Center for Israel Education website [1] starts with “January 22, 1979. Ali Hassan Salameh, the mastermind behind the Palestinian terrorist attack on the Israeli team at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, dies … after a Mossad car bomb is detonated as he drives by …”

The article continues “… After the Munich massacre, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir authorized Operation Wrath of God to eliminate the terrorist network behind the slaughter. Wrath of God swiftly killed many of the key members of the Palestinian terror network operating in Europe…”

It appears that Golda Meir (and the Mossad), employed the following approach: if you take an Israeli hostage, you will pay for it with your life. It is not about whether one negotiates or not with the terrorist. In fact, negotiations did take place in Munich during the 1972 Olympics. By all means, negotiate the best damn deal possible. But the conversation moving forward must shift to post-deal consequences both for the terrorists that take an Israeli hostage and for the terrorists who use that hostage to extract their freedom.

The goal of creating Israel was first and foremost for Jews to have agency in defending and protecting Jewish lives. It was never, for example, to have “the most moral army in the world”. To quote General Patton, “the goal of a soldier is not to die for his country, but to make the other son of a bitch die for his”. The founding fathers and mothers of Israel and several generations of leadership that followed have lived (and died) by the same principle.

Why does Israel find itself in a cycle of terrorists taking Israeli hostages followed by lopsided exchanges? Let’s set this question aside for now. The more urgent issue is how can Israel break this cycle as soon as possible?

Although Israel’s leaders have no doubt internalized that the primary raison d’etre of an independent Jewish State is tied to the slogan “Never Again,” their actions need to be in accordance with this understanding. If it takes going clandestine, do it. If it takes going extra-judicial, do it. Not to say that Israel didn’t deploy this strategy before October 7 (after the Munich Olympics, and other recent targeted assassinations), but obviously it has not been executed in recent years with the dedicated resources and intensity necessary to prevent the large-scale hostage-taking of October 7.

The targets and the timing of Israel’s actions (immediately after or even during the hostage-taking) should leave no doubt in the perpetrators’ minds that they are carried out specifically in response to the taking of an Israeli hostage.

Israel has agency to prevent hostage-taking. Israel can take the post-hostage-deal period as an opportunity to change the hostage-taking landscape.

My suggestions are straightforward; certainly not simple to execute but as we all know now, the IDF and Israel’s intelligence services are certainly capable of operations beyond our imaginations. First, make the best deal possible, and then do your best to kill both the perpetrators of the kidnapping and the worst of the released terrorists, particularly the barbarians with blood on their hands. Call it a modified Golda Meir doctrine.

The foundation of this doctrine is that those who take hostages forfeit their lives. The first step is to hunt down and assassinate all hostage takers and their accomplices. Jail time is not a deterrent. With the ever-increasing scale of participation in hostage taking operations, there may have to be a distinction made between the leaders and the foot soldiers. Or not. It depends on the context; thank you, former Harvard President Gay. For example, Muhammad Sinwar would certainly fall into the “kill” category for his role in the Gilad Shalit abduction, and for his role in planning the abduction of hostages on October 7, 2023.

The second step in the doctrine is to de-incentivize hostage-taking for the terrorists that are released as a result of the hostage taking and swap. Institute an understanding within both the Israeli political echelon and the branches of IDF and the secret service, that after the exchange of hostages for terrorists, the worst of the terrorists will not be rearrested, but killed. The terrorists will eventually (maybe quickly, depending on Mossad’s efficiency) understand that the rules and consequences of hostage-taking have changed. The goal is to make the jailed terrorist think long and hard about being traded in exchange for the hostages. To make them say “thanks, I’ll pass, not this time.”

The third part of the doctrine to deter hostage-taking is that Israel needs to be the first to break any “negotiated ceasefire agreement” to trade hostages for jailed terrorists. To illustrate the issue, consider the following example (to use one of my favorite Haviv Rettig Gur-ism, “hear me out”). I am negotiating with another guy. Both are carrying guns. We negotiate an agreement that we will not shoot each other. We sign the agreement, shake hands, I pull the gun and shoot the other guy in the head, lights out. I keep the signed agreement as a memento, a souvenir, or a certificate of participation…

Let’s be real. Islamist terror entities don’t adhere to agreements. There was a ceasefire on October 6, 2023, right? The winning strategy is obvious: be the first one to pull the gun. Israel needs to break agreements first, before the terrorists have a chance to break it. Otherwise, Israel will be responding to the next atrocity, not making a statement about the previous one and extracting an adequate price for it. By not breaking an “agreement” with the terrorists at the first opportunity, Israel is incentivizing future hostage-taking.

Israel must break the vicious cycle of hostage-taking perpetrated by Islamist terrorists. Any policy or approach to deter hostage-taking will not be 100% effective. One can never discount or underestimate the determination and fanaticism of Israel enemies. But there should be a consistent and effective policy backed by sufficient resources to create maximum deterrence to future hostage-taking. Taking an Israeli hostage should be a death sentence. Period.

References:

[1] https://israeled.org/munich-mastermind-assassinated/?mc_cid=9d86d91af3&mc_eid=24ca457773