(NewsNation) — Israel’s military says Hamas has at least 199 hostages right now in Gaza, including children, the elderly and U.S. citizens. Should Israel negotiate with Hamas to bring the hostages home? One analyst believes the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, may be, in part, the product of Israel’s previous prisoner swap with Hamas.
The last time Hamas released someone taken captive to Israel was in 2011. Israel and Hamas agreed to swap Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, but his freedom came at the cost of releasing 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. This included Yahya Sinwar, a top leader of Hamas who Israeli military have called “the mastermind” of the Oct. 7 attack. Sinwar is now at the top of the Israeli Defense Force’s target list.
Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University, predicted that the 2011 prisoner swap would end in victory for Hamas.
“I do think hostage swaps with terrorists are a losing proposition. And what happened back in 2011, as I and others predicted at the time, is a terrible example of what can happen first, if you reward terrorists who take hostages. Then you get more of that same kind of behavior, what you reward, you tend to get more of, so they cease more hostages over time,” Somin told NewsNation host Dan Abrams. “Second, the terrorists you release, many of them go on to commit acts of further terrorism, which I worried about back in 2011.”
Somin said deals with groups like Hamas, which has been designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization since at least 1997, may spur more terroristic acts.
“I know it’s an agonizing, painful situation, our hostages. I totally understand the emotions involved, and my heart breaks for the people whose relatives are in that situation. But the problem is that if you do make these sorts of deals, you incentivize more hostage taking, you get more terrorism, and in the long run, very likely, more innocent people are victimized and killed rather than fewer,” Somin said.
President Joe Biden said the U.S. will do “everything in our power to find those who are still alive and set them free.” Somin thinks it’s hard to say whether Biden would offer to trade prisoners with ties to Hamas for American hostages.
“I think the political dynamics in this instance may be a little bit different than they usually are. But obviously, when the president says he’ll do anything, you know, it’s hard to know exactly what he means by that. We’ll have to see,” Somin said.
He continued: “I worry that if a deal is made, then you might get results similar to horrific ones that we’ve had from past deals, including that which occurred in 2011 in Israel.”
Israel declared war after Hamas launched a surprise attack Oct. 7. More than 1,400 Israelis have been killed, with the majority being civilians left dead in the Oct. 7 assault.