Originally Posted by Slims

That is not my solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem. It is only my solution to hostage-taking and I would apply it world-wide. The US/Israel would likely lose a few hostages short-term, but as soon as it became very obvious that there was no possible gain to kidnapping I think there would be much less of it.

In Afghanistan several members of the Coalition have been quietly paying the Taliban to release hostages. This started with a very few isolated incidents, but has since been driven by success into a solid source of income for the Taliban (which they use to conduct attacks which kill Coalition Soldiers/Afghan civilians). Appeasing hostage-takers will only encourage them to continue taking hostages.

If Israel caves and releases dozens of fighters in order to save the live of one soldier, it will likely result in those newly released fighters killing more Israelis'...The math just doesn't work. It is easy for a government to sacrifice unknown, faceless lives in order to save a named person being paraded around as a prisoner, but it is not morally justified.

I would try to get Shalit back any way I could...except for meeting the demands of the hostage takers as one life is not worth the second and third order effects resulting from making disproportionately large concessions.


Furthermore, I would attempt to find and kill the hostage takers both to send a lesson to other potential kidnappers as well as to prevent those individuals from evolving their craft and sharing lessons learned with others like them.