Prisoner Swap: An Ethical Dilemma

If all goes as planned, Israeli sergeant Gilad Shalit will be freed by Hamas on Wednesday in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas said it reached 90% of its objectives with the swap, and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has broad public support for the deal. Others warn that the prisoner swap will only boost terror. It's a classical case of an ethical dilemma.

For more than five years, Israelis agonized over the fate of Gilad Shalit, the young Israeli soldier (and dual Israeli and French citizen) held captive by Palestinian terrorists in a secret underground location.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that a "window of opportunity" had opened through the Arab Spring that might have soon closed.

He thanked the governments of Egypt and Germany for mediating the negotiations with Hamas that led to the deal.



Israel's citizenry is largely enthusiastic about the deal. But not everybody agrees.

Israeli cabinet minister Uzi Landau rejected the prisoner swap this week as a "big victory for terror."

He added that the Shalit deal would set a dangerous precedent that would offer an incentive to kill more Israelis and make more kidnappings.

Hamas chief Haled Meshal indicated that he will launch more attacks to kidnap Israeli soldiers and use them as bargaining chips to free more of the 8,000 remaining Palestinians who remain in Israeli prisons.

On the other hand, as the Jewish saying goes, if you save one life, you save all of humanity.

The deal is a perfect example of an ethical dilemma, a right-versus-right decision where the better solution is far from obvious and there is no right answer.

In today's complex world, ethical dilemmas are much more frequent than before. And they are much tougher to solve than right-versus-wrong decisions (temptations). 

Is it better to return one soldier to his family, no matter the consequences?

Or is it better to sacrifice that one soldier for the protection of many others?

This ethical dilemma is called individual-versus-group.

It could also be called short-versus-long-term: Is it better to get an immediate result, since one bird in the hand is better than two in the bush?

Or is it better to pay the short-term costs in return for long-term benefits?

(Other ethical dilemmas are justice-versus-mercy and truth-versus-loyalty.)

When leaders face an ethical dilemma, they have to step back from the action and take a hard look at their value system.

Nobody envies Mr. Netanyahu for having to make a tough call. But who ever said that leadership was easy? More often than not, it is a messy, uncertain, and chaotic business.

What do you think? What would you have done in Netanyahu's sitution: approve the prisoner swap and risk the lives of many more people, or reject the deal and lose Gilad Shalit? I look forward to reading you on http://thomaszweifel.blogspot.com/.

P.S. To learn more about tackling ethical dilemmas,  check out "The Rabbi and the CEO."