The author of the article, Richard Silverstink, is a Left-wing Jackass.
I debated this flake years ago several times on Charlie Rose message boards.
He's, as always, wrong.
....Implementation of the Hannibal Directive comes on the heels of the freeing of Gilad Shalit after five years in captivity. The nation freed 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in order to release Shalit. Israeli hardliners screamed bloody murder about freeing murderers with blood on their hands. Some said it would have been better if Shalit had died rather than face this ignominy.
I believe that Benny Gantz and Bibi Netanyahu aren’t prepared to go through such a trauma again. They believe their constituency would understand if they killed a soldier rather than lose him to capture. Let’s make no mistake about this: it is a purely political calculation. A nakedly, cynical political calculation. It suggests that the interests of the nation trump the life of the individual. These are considerations of an authoritarian state and not a democratic one. A democracy values the individual. It recognizes that the nation cannot exist without the individual. Even that the nation should not exist unless it respects and values that individual.
The Hannibal Directive perverts such principles. It embraces a fascist perspective in which the individual is subsumed within the mass. He has no specific individual value unless he is serving the interest of the nation. And his interests may, when necessary be sacrificed to the greater good."..
It's Not a "purely political calculation", it's a Lifesaving calculation.
A nation that is willing to exchange 1000 prisoners to get just One back, is Killing more people in the long run than it is saving in the short.
And these exchanges have happened before.
So, no doubt Commanders tell their soldiers to NOT get captured. It's a disastrous situation in "purely Lifesaving" terms.
This 'directive' is no doubt impressed on soldiers, knowing how grave it is to get caught.
But Not an airtight regulation/death sentence.
His examples were only of soldiers that could Not be gotten back with any exchange, not just because they were caught.
Are they issued Cyanide pills as say, our spy plane pilots were? No.
The Shalit example backfires on Silverstink.
Silverstink is a Left-wing Jerk blogger who got the idea for his website (TikkunOlam) from another Left-wing Jerk who thought of it first (the more famous 'Rabbi Moonbeam'/Michael Lerner of Tikkun.org).
It's amazing what a $15 Reg fee/website will do for otherwise not credible losers.
