The Hamas Hostage Crisis Bodes Terror For The U.S. And World

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Hostage-taking, like collective punishment, is among the most barbaric but also oldest tactics in human warfare. And yet something qualitative changed on Oct. 7, when Hamas went on its murderous rampage in Israel and abducted more than 200 innocent people into the Gaza Strip. What Hamas, Israel and others do in the coming days and weeks will set new precedents that may open a tenth circle of hell in this and other conflicts to come.

The terror already touches the whole world. In part, that's because the hostages include citizens of not only Israel but also some 25 other countries — from the US to Thailand, Argentina, Germany, France, Nepal, Russia, China, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and beyond. Almost all humanity now has a chamber of its heart held captive somewhere in the tunnels under Gaza.

But the shock waves will radiate widely for other reasons as well. Most obviously, the hostage situation has become one, if not , factor that determines the progression of this war and may decide whether the conflict spreads to the region and beyond. 

For now, US President Joe Biden and others have counseled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay a full-scale invasion of Gaza, in order to increase the chances of getting hostages out alive. Several have been released, after intermediation by Qatar. But most remain in captivity. And any moment now the Israelis will enter the strip with full force to destroy Hamas, with gruesome street and tunnel fighting to follow, and incalculable outcomes for the captives.

Even before that happens, the world has already witnessed that innocent Palestinian civilians also became hostages of a sort on Oct. 7. And although many people choose to see it differently, it's again Hamas, not Israel, that took them captive. The militants are cynically using the population they're supposed to govern as human shields, knowing that Gazans are in effect trapped, with nowhere to go. What these civilians are suffering is not intended by Israel to be collective punishment, but looks and feels like it to Gazans. 

The worst is probably still to come. Hamas has in recent weeks been compared to the Islamic State, the group that beheaded hostages on video and reveled in a new genre of terror porn. The coming weeks will tell where the current spirals of hate lead.

But the biggest reason Oct. 7 has already changed the world is that it reminded everybody, everywhere, of the nihilistic logic that makes people take other human beings hostage. Especially when the adversary is militarily superior, like the US or Israel vis-a-vis almost any opponent, combatants will look for asymmetries. And, as long as they're willing to be more ruthless than their foes, they will always find targets among the most vulnerable on the other side. 

This wasn't always the primary context in which hostages were taken. Throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages, the practice was an accepted, and sometimes even mutual, measure that accompanied ceasefires and peace treaties. The ancient Romans, for example, routinely took the kith and kin of the enemy's aristocracy or ruling class captive. These hostages were often treated well. Their purpose was to guarantee compliance by the other side. 

In modern times, though, hostage-taking became frowned upon. The Geneva Conventions prohibit the practice and the International Criminal Court considers it a war crime. In 1979, the United Nations adopted the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages. So much for all that.

For the unscrupulous and weak hoping to defeat the strong, the tactic's advantages remain glaring. This makes the US especially vulnerable, as it was in 1979, when Iranian students after the revolution took more than 50 Americans hostage for 444 days. It also turned Israelis into recurring targets, most notoriously during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the first games held on German soil since Adolf Hitler's in 1936. Palestinian terrorists took nine Israeli athletes hostage, all of whom were killed in a botched rescue attempt by the Germans. 

For the victims' nations, the correct response is an imponderable, ethically and strategically. What is the value of a life? In 2006, Hamas captured a 19-year-old Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit, and held him for five years before trading him for 1,027 Palestinians, many of whom had killed Israelis. What did that 1-to-1,000 ratio teach Hamas then? What is today's hostage crisis teaching other terrorists, state or non-state, now?

The reality is that hostage-taking exploits both asymmetries in strength and in value systems. Armies of democratic nations that are accountable to their citizens shy away from kidnapping, abducting or capturing innocents (how to reliably tell those from combatants is another matter). That's because doing so is evil, but also because the condemnation at home and abroad would turn any tactical victory into strategic defeat. 

By contrast, the world's most ruthless leaders — from the Iranian mullahs to North Korea's Kim Jong Un and Russia's Vladimir Putin — think nothing of human life other than their own, care little about opprobrium as long as they can stay in power, and coldly calculate whether kidnapping hostages would further their personal aims.

Oct. 7, 2023, has been compared to Sep. 11, 2001, in the United States. But it was different, in that 9/11, traumatic as it was, didn't become a hostage crisis. Nor does Oct. 7 really compare to the 1972 Olympics, the capture of Gilad Shalit or even the grisliest acts of the Islamic State — if only because it so greatly exceeds those atrocities in scale.

And so the 200-odd innocent people cowering in the tunnels under Gaza, and the 2 million innocents whimpering above, now take center stage in world politics. Their fate is intertwined with people in the future taken hostage by imitators, and with hatreds and wars to come in distant places. Americans are at risk, Israelis are at risk, all of us are at risk. This is what Hamas has wrought, the tenth circle of hell.

Elsewhere at Bloomberg Opinion:

• Israel's Friends Are Urging Patience. That's Good Advice: Marc Champion
• Is the Market Calm About the Mideast Wise or Dangerous?: John Authers
• For Oil, It's Not 1973 Again, But It Could Be Ugly: Javier Blas

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist.

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