Day 574 - Genesis of Israel's hostage policy

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing

The Times of Israel

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4.4 • 864 Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

Welcome to The Times of Israel's newest podcast series, Friday Focus. Each Friday, join diplomatic reporter Lazar Berman and host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan for a deep dive into what's behind the news that spins the globe.

This week, we look at Israel's long history of hostage release negotiations and how the price per captive has become increasingly inflated over the decades.

To begin our discussion, Berman gives a brief survey of some traditional Jewish sources dealing with the subject, including the Bible, Mishna and the Rambam's writings.

We then turn to 1950s Israel and hear a survey of hostage and POW situations -- and how many prisoners Israel released to free its citizens.

Finally, we discuss the deal which released Gilad Shalit -- and saw 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners again walk free, including Hamas October 7 mastermind, Yihye Sinwar.

Friday Focus can be found on all podcast platforms. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: Illustrative image of now-dead Hamas head Yachye Sinwar at a rally to mark the annual al-Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), in Gaza City, April 15, 2023. (Atia Mohammed/Flash90)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Times of Israel's Friday Focus. I'm your host, Deputy Editor Amanda Borschell
0:07.0	Dan here with our diplomatic reporter, Laser Bearman, for another schmuse, informative conversation.
0:14.0	No, definitely not a schmuse. So for a very focused conversation on one particular topic, today is Friday, May 2nd.
0:24.1	Laser, we are going to talk about the hostage release slash prisoner release negotiations
0:29.9	that have been ongoing, of course, since the beginning of the war and the October 7th
0:35.1	Hamas onslaught, which saw some 251 hostages taken back to
0:39.9	Gaza.
0:40.9	But we're going to start looking at the sources.
0:44.5	Laser, thank you so much for taking the time to do the research and to look into the
0:49.5	Jewish tradition for any kind of sources that we may have to lay the foundation to our conversation
0:57.4	that we're having today about the hostages.
1:00.3	Yeah, let me just preface the entire discussion with a statement that there's clearly no
1:05.7	easy decisions on this issue.
1:08.8	It's clearly an issue that is a very fraught and important strategic
1:15.1	issue and social issue right now in Israel. And it's not a new thing. If you look at Israeli history,
1:21.2	it has been an issue that repeats itself. It's been a very live debate and a very, you know,
1:27.0	loaded discussion. And if you go back through Jewish history, it's also a very live debate and a very, you know, loaded discussion. And if you go back
1:29.0	through Jewish history, it's also been an important and painful reality of Jewish existence
1:35.1	and of the discussion around this issue. So as you noted, it's not only a strategic issue,
1:41.3	but it's also a strategic issue. It's also an emotional issue, a moral issue, and even a religious issue.
1:48.0	Now if we're talking about hostages, there's no explicit mention in the Torah of how we're
1:53.5	supposed to deal with this idea of Jewish hostages, hostages from our own people.
	...

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