A secret recording of Lior Lotan, the Israeli official who spent the past three years trying to secure the return of two living Israeli captives and two fallen Israeli soldiers from the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip and last Thursday resigned his thankless post, was broadcast by Army Radio on Monday, revealing Lotan’s professional opinion that there is only one way to effectively obtain such releases: the Middle east way.
“For every one of our captives, capture 200 Hamas prisoners, for every two – 400,” Lotan was heard in the recording of a closed meeting which apparently took place several months ago, debating the lessons learned from the 2014 Gaza War. “We have to fill our wallet with prisoners,” Lotan insisted.
In the recording, part of which was censored, the former negotiator is heard explaining the deterrent actions that the IDF must take in the next war: “In order to prevent the next abduction, Israel must have its own bank of hostages. For each [kidnapped Israeli] it has to take 200.”
“This will not necessarily prevent kidnappings, but the [other side’s] approach will be different,” Lotan is heard saying. “This is an idea that the IDF must get better at in the next war.”
Lotan is yet to respond to Monday morning’s broadcast, but Leah Goldin, the mother of one of the fallen soldiers the Hamas is refusing to release for burial in Israel, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, said that “the positive thing is that the Netanyahu office is about to appoint a coordinator to replace Lotan, and we support the Prime Minister on this issue.”
Lotan’s recommendation is based on the Hamas behavior regarding proposed exchanges since the summer of 2014: when Israel offered to return 19 bodies of Hamas terrorists for the bodies of the two Israeli soldiers, Hamas stuck to its guns, insisting that the captives would be released only in exchange for terrorists in Israeli prisons.