Bergdahl exchangeStates have consistently negotiated with terrorists to get back their citizens
The prisoner exchange with the Taliban has been met with criticism from some quarters, but, in fact, there is nothing unique about it, as the record shows that states around the world do negotiate with terrorists in order to get back their citizens or advance other goals. For example, since the early 1980s, Israel has freed nearly 8,000 Palestinian terrorists, and Palestinian and Arab prisoners, for fewer than twenty Israelis — soldiers and citizens who were held captive by Hezbolla and Hamas, and the bodies of several dead Israelis soldiers Hezbollah held as bargaining chips. Experts say that arguments can be made for or against theBergdahl exchange on its merits, but what cannot be argued is that the exchange should not have been made because it involved negotiations with terrorists.
The prisoner exchange with the Taliban has been met with criticism from some quarters, but, in fact, there is nothing unique about it, as the record shows that states around the world often negotiate with terrorists in order to get back their citizens or advance other goals.
Few countries have faced a more persistent threat from terrorists than Israel and few countries have fought terrorism more tenaciously than Israel. A 2011 Jerusalem Post article entitled, “A history of Israel’s prisoner swaps,” notes, for example, that “over the past three decades, Israel has agreed to release almost eight thousand detainees in exchange for captured soldiers and citizens.”
Examples of such exchanges by Israel include:
- 1983 — Israel freed 4,600 Arab detainees in return for six Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah in Lebanon
- 1985 — Israel released 1,150 Palestiniian terrorists and Arab prisoners in exchange for three Israeli soldiers held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command
- 2004 — Israel released 436 Palestinian terrorists and other Arab prisoners in a deal with Hezbollah for the return of Elhanan Tannenbaum — a former Israeli military intelligence officer who, after leaving the military and becoming a businessman, became involved in illegal activities — and the bodies of three dead Israeli soldiers abducted while on a border patrol in 2000
- 2011 — Israel agreed to a deal with Hamas to free 1,027 Palestinian terrorists in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, who had been held in the Gaza Strip since 2006
The Huffington Post reports that Sri Lanka’s four-decades-long battle with the Tamil Tigers offers another example of repeated prisoner swaps. The war has resulted in the deaths of at least 100,000 people. Time Magazine reports that in 2002, both parties exchanged eighteen prisoners held by the two sides, some for as long as nine years, in a deal that helped lead to temporary cease-fire. The BBC notes that in 2010, the Sri Lankan government releases ninety-eight Tamil Tiger fighters as Christmas good-will gesture. The fighting erupted again in 2006, and in 2009 the Sri Lankan government, conducting a scorched-earth campaign, crushed the rebel organization.
Colombia’s war against the FARC rebels has so far killed more than 220,000 Colombians over a fifty-five-years span, yet both sides have regularly negotiated to free hostages and victims of kidnapping. The Red Cross has been negotiating prisoner swaps between the Colombian government and the FARC since 1994. According to the
