In a Mideast Version of ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ the Prize Is More Terror

Don’t deal with terrorists. It’s one of those bromides -- like “do unto others” or “floss after every meal” -- that are often mouthed but seldom obeyed. Pretty much every democracy deals with terrorists. Britain has dealt with the IRA, Colombia with the FARC, India with Kashmiri separatists, Israel with the PLO.

The United States is no exception. It’s been dealing with kidnappers since the 1790s, when George Washington paid ransom to the Barbary pirates for the release of sailors seized in the Mediterranean. Similar deals were cut with Iran in 1980 to release the American Embassy hostages and, later, other Americans who were grabbed in Lebanon.

But in the long annals of hostage negotiations, seldom has a more lopsided deal been struck than the one Israel concluded with the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah last week. In return for Hezbollah’s giving up three dead Israeli soldiers and one live kidnapped Israeli businessman, Israel released 429 prisoners, mainly Palestinians, and 59 dead Lebanese fighters.

The Israeli government claimed that most of the released prisoners were small fry and that none had actually killed its citizens outside of southern Lebanon. Not for want of trying, though. Many were simply terrorists whose plots had been foiled. According to the Jerusalem Post, one of the Israeli police officers overseeing the exchange was heard to mutter, “I wonder how long it will be before they resume their terrorist activities?” Judging by the chants of the Palestinians on their way to freedom -- “God is great.... With fire and brimstone, we will redeem Jerusalem” -- many of them are only too eager to try, try again until they finally succeed.

To see who got the better end of the bargain, all you have to do is compare the reactions of the two sides in the deal. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s willingness to conclude this deal, while he is in danger of indictment on corruption charges, has split Israeli public opinion and even his own Cabinet. The three slain soldiers were memorialized in a somber service, while Elhanan Tannenbaum, the kidnapped businessman, was unceremoniously whisked off for interrogation by security agents who wanted to know whether he’d been involved in shady dealings.

There was no horn-honking or dancing in the streets of Tel Aviv, as there was in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The greatest jubilation of all was in Beirut, where, at an elaborate welcome-home ceremony, the head of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, proudly stood next to the president and prime minister of Lebanon while Hezbollah’s flag flew alongside the Lebanese flag. This further reinforces Hezbollah’s status as a state within a state -- not a comforting development given its rabidly anti-American and anti-Jewish ideology.

This Shiite group, which is backed by Iran and Syria, had already been immeasurably strengthened by Israel’s May 2000 pullout from southern Lebanon, which was seen in the Arab world as its first military triumph against the “Zionist entity.” Encouraged to think that they could achieve their objectives through violence, the Palestinians launched the Al Aqsa intifada four months later. Now the prisoner swap adds a “new notch in Hezbollah’s belt,” writes the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, and gives Hezbollah “another significant victory in its struggle with Israel.”

There is little indication that these triumphs are sating Hezbollah’s appetite for conflict. It has kept on firing into northern Israel, although it has been careful not to provoke massive retaliation. Now Nasrallah is threatening further kidnappings of Israelis. Not wanting to be upstaged, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, vows to follow suit in order to win the release of his followers imprisoned by Israel. This reminds us why countries should avoid concessions to terrorists: It only emboldens them to wreak greater havoc.

The broader effect of Sharon’s deal is that it encourages Islamic radicals to think that we in the West value life to such a degree that we can be brought to our knees by suicide bombings. This is the ethos that animates not only Hezbollah and Hamas but also Al Qaeda. As an Islamist website warned in November: “You’re engaged in a war with people who love death as much as you love life.”

Of course, our enemies are wrong to mistake our humanity for weakness. Anyone familiar with U.S. history -- with Antietam, Okinawa or Khe Sanh -- knows that Americans are ready to sacrifice for freedom. The tragic loss of more than 500 soldiers has not shaken our resolve in Iraq. Israeli history is replete with similar examples of fortitude and self-sacrifice, from the 1948 War of Independence to the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank. But who can blame the jihadis for thinking that we are easy prey when, by this latest deal, Israel in essence stipulates that one Jewish life is worth 430 Arab lives? That is the kind of moral calculus that gives hope to suicide bombers.

Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes a weekly column for the Los Angeles Times.