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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now, Robin Wright, columnist for the New Yorker, where she writes mostly about global affairs. Her books relevant to the current Middle East crisis include The Last Great Revolution, Turmoil and Transformation in Iran, Sacred Rage, The Wrath of Militant Islam, and others. She is also with the Woodrow Wilson Center and the United States Institute of Peace.

She's a distinguished fellow at the Wilson Center. Chartered by Congress, the Wilson Center provides nonpartisan counsel and insights on global affairs to policymakers through deep research, impartial analysis, and independent scholarship they say. Robin has a new article on the Woodrow Wilson Center website called Why Taking Hostages is Such a Potent Tool in Warfare. Robin, thanks for coming back on WNYC. Hi, there.

Robin Wright: Great to be with you as always, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: First, I'm seeing some breaking news, and I don't expect you necessarily to be able to confirm this, but I'm seeing NBC news quoting a senior Arab official, as they call the person, saying the four-day truce between Israel and Hamas will be extended. Anything you're seeing that can confirm that?

Robin Wright: The intention always was to see if the four days would hold and then to try to extend it by one day, two days, or potentially longer. I think that's the hope of all sides in order to get more hostages out for the Israeli side and more humanitarian aid in for the Palestinians.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a little more, just coming in from the AP. It says, "The spokesman for Qatar's Foreign Ministry says that an agreement has been reached to extend the Israel-Hamas truce for another two days." It adds, "Qatar, along with Egypt, has been the key mediator in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas." The announcement comes on the final day of a four-day truce between the warring sides. With your interest in hostage-taking historically and now, which, of course, we will get to, I guess this means there will be another 10 hostages released per day. I think that was the offer by Israel in the first place. If they get another 10 hostages per day, Israel will extend the pause in the military action.

Robin Wright: That's right. One of the side questions is, do they have any other foreigners like the Thai or the Filipino laborers who had been working in Southern Israel, whether there may be more of them. Again, we don't have the identities and the final numbers. We all have to remember as well that Hamas does not hold all the hostages. It's believed that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is a much more absolutist, much more brutal, and less political organization also is believed to hold some of the Israelis nabbed on October 7th.

Brian Lehrer: Boy, it's hard to believe for a lot of people that there's an organization involved there that is more absolutist than Hamas.

Robin Wright: Yes. Well, remember Hamas has been involved in the governance of Gaza now since 2007. It won a democratic election that Americans and other international organizations monitored and said was free and fair. Hamas won the largest segment in parliament, and so it's been a political force since 2006 recognized as the government of Gaza. Islamic Jihad on the other hand, which is much smaller and has much more support from Iran, it has been absolutist in its goals of just destroying Israel militarily, not being a local political force or running for office.

Brian Lehrer: The initial offer to extend the truce as I saw it attributed to Prime Minister Netanyahu was 10 hostages per day for a continued pause in military activity, but only for 10 days. We don't know if they'll even make it to 10 days. This new reported extension is only for 2 more days, but even at 10 days, that would be another 100 hostages released were it really to proceed for 10 days under that formula. That would still leave about 100 hostages in captivity.

I'm curious if you have any analysis as to why Netanyahu wouldn't offer that all the way to full hostage release because I would imagine it's in Israel's interest to see all the hostages released. Then from a maximalist Israeli standpoint, they could prosecute the war in Gaza more aggressively without having to worry about the fate of the hostages.

Robin Wright: The original deal was actually only for four days, and this is the fourth day, and so now it's being extended for two days. That's only for six days. That is not going to get anywhere near the problem of resolving the status of the hostages. Look, the pattern of hostage takings around the world is that this is a prolonged ordeal that in the case of Hamas and other militias, non-state actors who've seized civilians, they're the only leverage or the largest leverage that they hold against an adversary. Hamas in the past has, in the case of Gilad Shalit, they held him for five years, one person.

The terms to release him involved the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. This drama now plays out over the women, the children, and probably the elderly. The question is what happens when they get down to the men? I think that's likely based on the patterns of the past to be a much longer ordeal and the quid pro quo will be much higher. One of the things that's happened adjacent to this crisis is the Israelis have arrested, since October 7th, 3,000 Palestinians in the West Bank.

Again, we're in this cycle of violence and arrest, detentions, and so forth that complicate the prospect of ending this war. Hamas doesn't have an air force, doesn't have a navy. Its arsenal is clearly going to be grossly diminished from what it had on October 7th, and so it will want to use these human beings as weapons, basically, to force Israel to either ensure more humanitarian aid or perhaps other things down the road.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and I guess from a Palestinian perspective, if there have been 3,000 arrests of Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7th, they are saying that that's a much faster pace of detention than the pace of release in this 50 hostages for 150 prisoners exchange.

Robin Wright: That's right. I think we're getting into a numbers game that's very complicated, adds layers to the dimensions of this conflict. There've also been about 200 killed in the West Bank according to the United Nations. What we're seeing is not just tension--

Brian Lehrer: By Israeli settler militias, not even the government responding to something pseudo-military?

Robin Wright: I think it's a variety of things, and I'm not sure anybody's sorted out exactly the circumstances, but yes, Israeli settlers have been involved, backed in some cases reportedly by Israeli defense forces, either standing nearby or tolerating the practices. Again, we've been focused on Gaza and there's a simultaneous story playing out in the West Bank as well. The danger is West Bank was the one place that was willing in the past to negotiate with Israel.

What's happening now complicates the ability to move forward on what the United States hopes would be a two-state solution. I think that's an illusion right now but that's the US line and from the White House, the State Department, and everybody involved in this complicated diplomacy.

Brian Lehrer: Let me go back to a New Yorker article of yours from September called Freedom for Five Americans Doesn't End Flash Points with Iran. Robin, how quickly we forget, right? Remind us of that hostage crisis and what your take was then just two months ago.

Robin Wright: Well, the United States engaged in a hostage swap with Iran, five Americans who'd been detained in one case, a person held for eight years in exchange for five Iranians who had been held in the United States and a US waiver of some funds that were trapped that belonged to Iran that were trapped in South Korea. The hostage phenomenon goes back to ancient times. This is the most cost-effective tactic of warfare. You don't have to have advanced weaponry in order to seize people who are part of your adversary citizenry.

Julius Caesar was held as a hostage for 38 days. The man who became St. Patrick, the Catholic Patron of Ireland, was held as a slave for five years. The Americans, the early stages of the United States under President Washington, the US paid $642,000, about a quarter of our national budget to free 112 sailors who had been taken by Barbary pirates. That the hostage-taking has, for millennia, been very effective. We're seeing that play out now with more than 220 taken hostage on October 7th. I'm not even sure we have a final number of how many were taken, and we certainly don't know who exactly holds all of them.

Brian Lehrer: Looking back at your September article after the five US hostages were released by Iran, it's prescient because your take in September was that, well, this isn't going to be the last time that we have to deal with hostage-taking by Iran. Of course, that was September, and just a few weeks later came October 7th, where this Iran back group, Hamas, used this tool again.

Robin Wright: Yes, and I think the danger is that we're going to have further hostage takings down the road in other places. Remember we have Americans held not only in the Middle East but in Russia now. Well-known Wall Street Journal correspondent Paul Whelan who is a former US Marine, that whether it's in Venezuela, Russia, China, Syria, there have been Americans in recent times taken elsewhere. This is a tactic that is likely to be with us as long as the human species is around, unfortunately.

Brian Lehrer: Would you characterize it as an asymmetrical tool, that is Hamas could never defeat Israel militarily, whether people consider Hamas merely a terrorist group or a resistance movement, that formula is where hostage-taking and other forms of terror aimed at civilians occur, often comes from groups that are not state actors with militaries, but that are whatever you want to characterize them as, terror groups, insurgent groups, resistance groups, whatever label you want to put on it. They're from weaker non-state governments without militaries.

Robin Wright: Absolutely. Now, we have had governments. Clearly, Iran has made a long habit of taking hostages, dating back to the takeover of the US Embassy in 1979, when 52 Americans were held for 444 days. I stood at the foot of the steps of the plane when they flew to freedom in Algeria. Iran has sporadically taken Americans off the streets. Most of them, I think all of them, are guilty of absolutely nothing, but this is a pressure tactic. Non-state actors like Hamas, like Hezbollah, have regularly taken adversaries or people, or Westerners because in Western nations, we value the individual life often more highly.

There's a trauma, particularly with hostage takings. I remember when Hezbollah was engaging in suicide bombings, including of the US Marine peacekeepers in Beirut in the early '80s. What Hezbollah discovered is that it would kill people, but they were basically dead and buried, they were mourned and grieved, but they offered little leverage down the road. Hezbollah switched to taking hostages. One of my colleagues and friends, Terry Anderson, who was the Associated Press correspondent in Beirut was held, chained to a radiator for seven years. He had done nothing. He was a reporter.

We as a nation are captivated by their captivity, and we feel the human trauma, we imagine the terror of how they're living. Hostage-taking is not just cost-effective for the terrorist groups or the non-state actors, they're very effective in generating attention to the cause of the perpetrators, of exerting enormous pressure on other governments, of exerting sometimes profits, ransoms in effect. It's incredibly effective. We all feel the emotion when we see the posters put up on walls in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem of those who were kidnapped.

We feel the trauma of a four-year-old girl who's been held in underground tunnels. That's why it's so effective, and that's why Hamas, Hezbollah, and others have taken Americans or Israelis and other nationalities because they know that we care.

Brian Lehrer: Have you looked into what historically have been the most effective methods for dealing with hostage takings of innocent civilians? I'm thinking of just after October 7th, when the extent of the hostage-taking in this case had come to light and one of our first callers said, "No negotiations with Hamas over the release of the hostages. If they have to die, that's horrible. It will deter them from taking more hostages in the future and taking more lives. More lives will be saved in the long run by not negotiating with terrorists who take hostages." That's one position.

The experience of Israel, as you were reminding us, is often to value the individual life and make deals for many, many, many Palestinian prisoners and exchange even for one Israeli hostage, in the case of the soldier you were talking about before. Does history tell us that there is a best way to deal with these impossible trade-offs?

Robin Wright: The official US policy is that it will not negotiate with terrorist groups, full stop. The reality is that the United States has repeatedly engaged in an effort to free political prisoners and hostages. The United States also, this year, or maybe it was last year, in the negotiation for basketball player, Brittney Griner, the US released an arms dealer known as the Merchant of Death. His name was Viktor Bout, and he was imprisoned in the United States for 25 years, and that was his sentence anyway. He got out after I think 12, for helping a terrorist group, engaging in conspiracy against the United States, and a series of other charges.

We release high-profile spies and others in exchange for people who were engaged in no crime and have been picked up in order to pressure the United States. You look at what, in our early days, again, giving up a quarter of our National Treasury for just over a hundred human beings held by pirates. The West has not had a united policy. Some in Europe have engaged in payment, in ransom, in order to free their hostages, for example, held by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, whereas the United States took a tougher position and as a result, James Foley and others were beheaded by ISIS.

This is where it's really hard. The human drama and trauma is just so horrific that governments often in the end succumb because of public pressure, because of the human sympathy we have for the plight of people who are still alive. There has not been a consistent policy by the West or even by US governments.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a comment from a listener by a text message who writes, "Hamas should need to provide proof of life and an exact count of the number of hostages held. Hamas doesn't have five years to resolve this." That's referring to a five-year hostage situation you referred to before. This says, "Hamas doesn't have five years to resolve this and will not be getting back militants like the militants that Trump returned to the Taliban."

I wonder if, maybe just from a strategy standpoint, you have a comment on that. Israel is bent on destroying Hamas, at least as it exists in Gaza and its infrastructure in Gaza, and so they don't have five years to resolve this. They will not be getting back many people over time. I wonder if you think that-- at least that's the listener's take, how you think the fact that there is such an Israeli military campaign to destroy Hamas's leadership and infrastructure in Gaza affects the hostage situation and their calculus?

Robin Wright: First of all, part of the deal does include a stipulation that the Red Cross be allowed in to take a look at the hostages, look at their condition, and make sure that the numbers and the names that Israel has amassed are true and that all these people are alive. That's really important. We have not gotten to that point yet. Your caller or member of your listening group have a right to say that Hamas does not have five years to resolve this. One of the interesting tidbits is that Yahya Sinwar, who is the head of Hamas inside Gaza, was held as a prisoner for 22 years in Israel.

He was one of those of the 1,000 who was traded for Gilad Shalit. The challenge is, how do you release Palestinians who are not going to go back and fan the flames of hatred and warfare? Now, the question is, when we talk about destroying, or when Israel talks about destroying Hamas, there's a real problem there. Can it destroy an idea? Can it destroy the kind of anger or fury that a lot of Palestinians feel, civilians who weren't members of Hamas, they've lost their homes, their jobs, their livelihood? Many of them have little to nothing. What happens, whether it's Hamas or the successor to Hamas, what happens if there's no political outcome?

I think the one danger we're seeing in the war right now, is that while there is diplomacy to deal with human lives, that there is very little political diplomacy to find what happens afterwards, not just in terms of security, whether it's Israel occupying Gaza again or who rules in Gaza. The West Bank government of President Abbas is not going to step in. It would be extremely unpopular. Hamas and President Abbas split in 2007. The Palestinian public in the West Bank would not-- I don't think either Gaza or the West Bank would accept the idea of the West Bank government moving in.

This is where the real volatility is, if there is no outcome to this, and what does winning mean? What does Israel mean by defeating? Yes, it can destroy military compounds, kill leaders, limit or block any more military activity, but the danger is that there's something much bigger in the Middle East happening. How does Israel deal with the allies of Hamas or the sponsors of Hamas in Iran? This is why I worry about, are there layers to this war that Israel takes on Hamas and then takes on others? Where does this stop? What's the political outcome at any level immediately or down the road?

Brian Lehrer: Robin Wright is a contributing writer and columnist for the New Yorker and distinguished fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and US Institute of Peace. Her latest article is on the Wilson Center website. It's called Why Taking Hostages Is Such a Potent Tool in Warfare. Robin, thanks a lot.

Robin Wright: Thank you, Brian.

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