on unfair exchange

on hearing the news that isreal was to exchange 1000 palestinian prisoners for a single i.d.f soldier i must confess my first reaction was: my god what an uneven exchange how unlike the isreali administration we have come to know and love. indeed the rhetoric surrounding the exchange alludes to something akin to an outburst of groundbreaking benevolence and long term pragmatism for so long absent from this arena, could this be the kick start the peace process requires and has thus far been so lacking? it was not long however before i found myself cynically searching for an underlying motive in this unexpected turn of events; the conclusion i have reached is that the true purpose of the exchange is the radical devaluing of not only the palestinian state but more ominously the very humanity of the individual palestinian. the first thing to appreciate is that this exchange was inevitable; politically the corrosive effect of abandoned soldiers is highly undesirable for the administration and a boon for the kidnappers, that being the case the question then becomes how to resolve the issue without losing too much political capital. perversely an even exchange would set up by far the most dangerous precedent as it creates a rational basis for the capture and release of soldiers: once established such a framework is incredibly difficult and costly to dismantle. the second option that of an uneven exchange of a magnitude of 2/1,3/1... would lead to accusations of weakness on the part of the administration and could also maybe begin to set another precedent as above. having accepted these points and the necessity of the making some form of trade the isreali government cannily opted for an almost ridiculous ratio, one that cannot be seen to set a precedent as non would expect any isreali government to repeat an exchange on this level, thereby to some degree nullifying the value of further hostage taking by declaring its response to be arbitrary and unpredictable. a useful byproduct of this action is the international adulation that has accompanied this; isreal has long proved itself adept at managing the discourse in relation to the occupied territories and in this instance the celebratory mood in gaza actually plays into the hands of those on the right of the isreali administration.

for these reasons far from being an act of benevolence the release, represents the cynical maximization of emotional and political capital and the regressive dehumanization of the palestinian subject. this dehumanization is explicit in the qualitative value placed on an individual palestinian life: put simply 1 isreali is worth 1000 palestinians. this is the value in exchange and by inference this is the value in life should a palestinian kill an isreali. such dispropotionality is cosistanly employed in the occupied terrotories and in this extraordinary exchange of prisoners; the isreali state has further normalized a diminution of human worth as regards the citizens of palestine