And now they know they can get what they demand with DEAD Jews.

Where’s the incentive to even keep anyone alive? Kill ‘em and the Israelis will comply anyway.

I don’t get it. Isn’t Negotiating For Dummies available in Israel?

He argued that terrorists will try to kidnap Israelis and Jews no matter what. Israel needed to do everything she could, he argued, if there was even a chance of bringing the men home alive.

I think his argument is powerful, human, and perhaps even religiously correct. But it is not logical. Nor was this decision on the part of the Olmert government.

From what I understand, when the deal was struck, no one on the Israeli side knew for a certainty whether the men were alive or dead. So the deal was undertaken in the desperate hope it would bring these men home alive. This fact, if I’m understanding, makes the decision at least comprehensible. But not logical.

As a result of this decision, Hezbollah and its sponsor Iran received a victory, a reward, for the monstrous behavior of kidnapping and torturing these men.

In speaking of the War on Terrorism, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani –who, despite many decades’ insistence on the part of experts, chiefs of police, a succession of NYC mayors, and ordinary citizens that it was “impossible,” brought law and order to New York City– has drawn an analogy between fighting terror and preventing domestic kidnapping. In Mexico, kidnapping is so common that businesspeople cannot conduct their affairs there without round-the-clock bodyguards. In contrast, kidnapping for money is comparatively rare in the much more prosperous U.S.

The fact that it has not been U.S. police policy to appease kidnappers with ransom, and that such practice has long been routine policy in Mexico, is thought to be a major factor in the proliferation of kidnapping for ransom there. In other words, while there may be factors other than official police policies (such as out and out corruption within the Mexican police forces), the bottom line is, thugs who kidnap Mexican businesspeople know they are likely to get a reward for their thuggery. They have learned over time–as the dynamic has been reinforced–that kidnapping is likely to get them what they want.

My friend argued passionately tonight that Hezbollah terrorists and their Iranian masters will kidnap no matter what, because their hatred is irrational. But even the venal, the monstrous–even the lowest animal, for that matter–understands cause and effect.

Unfortunately that has no currency in the outside world.

In vast swathes of the world, Israel, and by default Jews, are viewed as immoral and unethical no matter what they do to get terrorists to return dead bodies.

Nothing short of the elimination of the state of Israel will change that. And even that will not be enough for many.

One could argue that Israelis trying to feel good about themselves, in fact, devalues the very morality they wish to feel.

Why? Because deep down we all know that more Jews are actually going to die in direct response to this effort to feel more moral and more ethical.

So, the policy could be viewed as actually immoral in that is rewards individuals (the family involved, the individual Israeli) by making them feel good in the very short term; at the long-term cost of damaging the security of the whole.