Earlier this week the Israeli government agreed to release more than 1,000 Palestinians from prison—including hundreds serving life sentences for attacks on Israelis—in exchange for one young Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Rabbi Arik Ascherman explains the reasoning :
“Judaism places ultimate value on human life. Therefore in the Jewish tradition, in Jewish law, redeeming captives trumps just about everything else,” said Ascherman, of Rabbis for Human Rights. “It takes priority over anything else you can possibly do.”
Ascherman appears to believe a deontological approach is the best way of resolving the moral conflicts that arise from this situation. Perhaps he’s right, but I think the issues would be helped by framing the scenario in economic terms.
For example, Harvard professor Greg Mankiw has famously proffered Ten Principles of Economics , at least three of the principles are applicable in this context:
People face tradeoffs — Although this situation involves a literal tradeoff, what Makiw is referring to is that to get one thing we like, we often have to give up another thing we like. In this case, the tradeoff involves a choice between Israel’s principles. Their government is willing to trade a unquantifiable level of present and future national security in order to “redeem” the life of a soldier.
The cost of something is what you give up to get it — The cost of a trade includes not only the “price” of the good (in this case, 1000 Palestinians for 1 Israeli) but also the opportunity cost—whatever must be given up to obtain some item. As mentioned in the previous point, Israeli is willing to give up a modicum of national security in order to rescue this young man’s life. Even if the 1000:1 trade is considered equitable, the high opportunity cost is likely to cause concern.
People respond to incentives - Knowing Israeli’s preference provides an advantage for the Palestinians. There are an estimated 5,200 Palestinian security detainees and prisoners being held in Israeli prisons (counting the 1,000 being traded in this swap). If Israel is always willing to make a such a tradeoff, then the Palestinians need only to kidnap 4-5 more soldiers in order to trade them for their own people.
Of course Israel may claim that this is a one-time deal. But the Palestinians have a reason to believe that this is a “revealed preference” and that Israel will make a similar bargain in the future. The deal provides Palestinians an additional incentive to snatch up Israeli soldiers whenever the opportunity arises.
Another rabbi quoted in the article, Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblum, make a similar point:
[Rosenblum also] cites Jewish law, or halacha, and says the literature is so vast that there’s no clear answer.“Unfortunately there is an abundance of halachic literature about the redemption of captives,” he said.
He cited the example of the 13th-century German Rabbi Meir ben Baruch, known as the Maharam of Rothenburg, who refused to allow the Jewish community to pay a ransom for him when he was held by the Emperor Rudolph.
“He feared that his ransom would encourage any cash-strapped person to grab a hostage. You can’t create an incentive for kidnapping,” the rabbi said.
“He did not allow the community to redeem him. He died in jail,” said Rosenberg, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi and writer. “The idea is that you shouldn’t encourage further kidnappings.”
The precedent still applies, he argued.
So what should Israel have done? I honestly don’t know. While my my head tells me that Rabbi Rosenblum’s position in the most prudent, my heart agrees with Rabbi Ascherman. I belong to a religion that is founded on the idea that God himself was not only willing to give up everything to redeem sinful humans but would have been willing to do it if it had saved just one soul. That’s a powerful example.
But what God would do and what he would have us do are often at odds, which is why he has given us a multitude of tools for determining how best to navigate through our fallen world. That is the reason I think that while we need to inject more moral reasoning into economics, we also need to put more economic thinking into our moral decision-making. This is especially true when the moral decisions involve the fate of a nation.
