Saturday, July 05, 2008

Stop Making Sense

The type of prisoner exchange that Israel and Hezbollah are about to make is probably necessary (that is, the kind of thing that will need to happen for peace to come about), but it doesn't establish healthy incentives for either side, and doesn't really seem "fair" in terms of the disproportionate number of prisoners each side is releasing, or the disproportionate nature of the prisoner's acts. It's like a truth and reconciliation commission without the truth or the reconciliation. Most people seem to think Israel's consent is mainly about honoring its sacred oath to its citizen-soldiers, but I think it's probably also about PR: looking reasonable and willing to negotiate, and making Iran seem unreasonable by comparison. Of course for Hezbollah it's about PR as well - the difference being that Hezbollah is interested in domestic public opinion, whereas Israel is targeting international opinion.