Weekly Commentary: Act on Zini's Warning and Adopt Standards for Handling
Kidnappings
Dr. Aaron Lerner 17 December 2025
"The threat of kidnappings has not diminished; it has increased and will
continue to increase, because there is a price to the way in which we paid
for the release of the hostages."
- Shin Bet head Maj. Gen. (res.) David Zini, briefing ministers at the 11
December 2025 political-security cabinet meeting, as reported by Ynet
https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/yokra14614905
Our demonstrated willingness to trade large numbers of terrorists in
exchange for the release of hostages isn't our only hostage-related problem.
Yishai Elmakis-Elram revealed in a report published in the 12 December 2025
edition of Makor Rishon that the IDF was ordered not to encircle or attack
Hamas forces in areas where Israeli hostages might be located.
Now that our enemies know that Israeli hostages can be used strategically as
human shields, there is no telling how Hezbollah, Iran, the Houthis, and
Israel's other enemies will exploit this Israeli Achilles' heel in future
wars.
It did not have to be this way.
"Soldier Gilad Shalit has returned home, and the time has come to regulate
the treatment of captive and missing soldiers, and to stop the slippery
slope we find ourselves on following the Jibril deal, the Tannenbaum deal,
and the exchange of Gilad himself."
- Defense Minister Ehud Barak, upon receiving the Shamgar Report, May 2011
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to seek Cabinet approval for the
guidelines and restrictions proposed by the Shamgar Report, and they were
never enacted into law.
As politically challenging and painful as it is, adopting and enacting into
law clear guidelines and restrictions governing how Israel deals with the
challenge of Israeli hostages is necessary to remove hostage-taking from our
enemies' portfolio of effective tools in their war against Israel.
________________________________________
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Since 1992 providing news and analysis on the Middle East with a focus on
Arab-Israeli relations
Website: www.imra.org.il
| 
