Trading prisoners is one of the stranger deals that happens in the world of international diplomacy. It seems somehow not legal in anyone’s book and somehow very old- like something that happened when we were primarily riding around on horses.

The weirdness for me is how people gauge the exchange- it’s trading humans, and it always seems to be more on one side than on the other. And it’s got that tough aspect of setting some kind of precedent, like instead of a prisoner having it be a hostage-like situation rather than an exchange. There are all these crazy ethical issues about what is fair? If anything? What if one side dupes the other side (yes, like in the Hollywood movie or something…) and what if it all falls apart and erupts into violence?
What is the actual deal? Hamas wants to exchange ONE Israeli soldier, 23 years old, for hundreds or thousands of Palestinian prisoners.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was talking with his ministers about whether to accept the offer or to make a counter-offer. The Hamas prisoners include people who are responsible for killing many Israeli soldiers.

A secret source leaked to Reuters that Israel had made some kind of decision/ offer and that they had to wait until they heard back from Hamas- so it sounds like they are offering some but not all of what Hamas wants.

I mean, is it written on some kind of folded up piece of paper and galloped over there in the middle of the night? Do they have fake notes going in all directions? Is it in code? Is it a one if by land two if by sea kind of thing? Did the DM Hamas on twitter? What is going on! Amazing stuff.

And then I come back to my senses and realize- this is a real person. These are all real people. Netanyahu is dealing with a terrorist organization. They terrorize places and people. That’s what they do, that’s how they exert a sense of power.

The Israeli soldier has been a prisoner since 2006 when Hamas militants TUNNELED OVER TO ISRAEL FROM GAZA AND ABDUCTED HIM.

Hamas is asking for somewhere between 1,000 and 11,000 prisoners.

Hamas is asking for somewhere between 1,000 and 11,000 prisoners.

This is a no win for Netanyahu- he is a hardline negotiator who has prided himself his entire career on being tough with Hamas, and the families of the soldiers killed some of the Hamas prisoners are obviously not in favor of the Palestinian prisoners being released. And of course he will get a hard time if he is not able to make the deal happen- perhaps Hamas will even kill the prisoner, though that seems unlikely as he is such a valuable bargaining chip, apparently. The source also said that Hamas is unlikely to reduce their demands, which continue to sound absolutely outrageous to me.

And so, yet another piece of the endless standoff between Israel and its neighbors continues. Grudges mean conflict will not be buried in one of the leftover tunnels that are dug when conflicts are on the surface.

Photo Credit: Doug20022 (via Flickr under CCL)