Tzipi Livni’s recent comments on the impossibility of Israel getting all its captured soldiers released (let’s abandon the unbearably sentimental formulation about “bringing them home”) has given rise to considerable controversy when it should have been regarded as no more than an affirmation of the painfully obvious.

What she said was this,

“We cannot always bring all of them home,” she told students at a Tel Aviv high school during a discussion on Shalit the day the country somberly marked his 900th day in captivity. The thought that I can free Gilad and am not doing it is a horrible thought. We all want Gilad to come back home, but part of the willingness to fight is the understanding that we don’t have any other choice. There is always a risk of casualties, and it’s not always possible to bring everyone back home.”

1.

The key dilemma centers on the issue of soldiers kidnapped individually or in pairs, in smash and grab raids by non-state actors, such as the ones that cost Goldwasser and Regev their lives and which resulted in the kidnapping of Shalit. If more than a handful of soldiers should fall into enemy hands at the same time then it will probably occur in the context of a large-scale conflict with a state, a conflict in which Israel will also have captured significant numbers of enemy personnel. Securing the release of prisoners at the end of Israel’s major wars has been achieved in the context of ceasefire and disengagement agreements and has generally not given rise to great difficulties.

2.

So, the question is not whether Israel should make the effort that all countries make to secure the release of their POWs at the end of wars. It has done so in the past and, no doubt, will do so again in the future if needs be. The question rather arises as to what Israel should do secure the release of soldiers that have been kidnapped by non-state actors with the intention of securing concessions - usually the setting free of vast numbers of prisoners in Israeli jails - in return for their release.

3.

The reason these cases are so painful is that there is a direct conflict between the interests of the victim’s family and those of the Israeli state. The former want the state to pay practically any price to get their loved one released while the latter has to balance its duty towards the kidnapped soldier against its broader duty to protect other members of the armed forces, and the population in general, from future kidnapping by not rewarding those who have carried out existing ones. There is also the question of the state’s duty to the victims of the crimes committed by those whose release the kidnappers seek.

4.

There can be little doubt that Israel’s repeated release of hundreds of prisoners in return for the freeing of one or two captives has strongly encouraged Hamas and Hezbollah to put every ounce of their considerable ingenuity into carrying out kidnappings. They know that though it might take a while to arrange, they are likely to be hugely rewarded for the effort put into executing a successful kidnapping. After the case of Regev and Golwasser they also know that they don’t even have to bother capturing an Israel soldier alive and keeping him that way. They can kill the soldier in the initial action, or later if it suits them, store the corpse, torture the family of the deceased over a period of years by refusing to release any information about their fate and still be handsomely rewarded in the end.

5.

I have elsewhere written in defense of Israeli society’s sensitivity to causalities and I still hold fast to that view. However, on the question of how to deal with cases such as that of Gilad Shalit, I believe that we have reached the stage where understandable anxiety to protect his life and ensure his release is placing many other soldiers and civilians at a much greater risk of kidnap and murder than they otherwise would be.

6.

I’m not going to start dishing out advice to the government of Israeli as regards what they should do about Shalit now. Let them do what they feel they must. It seems clear to me, however, that the rules of the game for dealing with such cases will have to be changed and changed drastically in such a way as to reduce the incentives for future kidnapping. Considering the fate of Goldwasser and Regev, the risks attaching to a much tougher line do not seem great.