Quantifying that which shouldn't be quantified

There is an old joke that makes the rounds in the medical community every few years:

Q: How do you differentiate between major and minor surgery?

A: Minor surgery is something that someone else has to undergo.

I was reading the news this morning when a headline caught my eye and made me sad.  Once upon a time it would have made me angry... maybe even furious.  But today it simply reinforced my conviction that modern Israel is hopelessly divided between the elites in power and the rest of us with whom they have zero connection and/or empathy. 

The headline, which was a quote from the Social Affairs Minister, Yitzchak Herzog, read:

"Israel should be flexible in defining 'blood on hands'"

The story went on to detail how our government now seems willing to blur one of the last lines in the sand in order to trade terrorists in Israeli prisons for a kidnapped soldier who we have no indication is even alive. 

Now, call me old fashioned, but the concept of having blood on one's hands is arguably the last bastion of things for which there should be absolutely no wiggle room.  Either someone was involved in the taking of a human life... or they were not.  There has never been a reason in the past to differentiate between those who plan and those who act since they are all part of a murderous conspiracy.  But now it seems that even this hair can, and will, be split by the people in charge.

What saddens me most is that, like the medical joke, the criteria for adjusting the definition of 'having blood on one's hands' will almost certainly be modified according to whose blood was spilled and how closely the political elite in our government can identify with them. 

A shooting, knifing or bombing in Tel Aviv or Natanya?  Bloody hands. 
A shooting, knifing or bombing in a development town or in the territories?  Well, not so fast... let's talk about this a bit, shall we?

There was a time when Israel didn't openly negotiate with terrorists.  This was perhaps the only thing that kept us reasonably immune from the emotional blackmail of kidnapping and the dirty trade in body parts in which our ghoulish enemies seem to take delight.  But somewhere along the way we allowed the Arabs to set the market price for a Jewish captive:  A dead captive (or any part thereof) was worth dozens of prisoners.  A live captive was worth hundreds.

It doesn't take a great thinker to realize that agreeing to this kind of extortion only whets the terrorist's appetite for more Jewish captives.  And now that the last taboo of not allowing terrorists with blood on their hands to be considered in these shameful trades is about to be set aside, there is quite literally no limit to the demands that these savages can make.

It is no coincidence that in addition to the normal ministers that a typical political entity might have, that governments like Iran, Syria and the Palestinian Authority feel no shame in openly appointing permanent government representatives called 'Chief Negotiators' and asking the rest of the world to extend full diplomatic status to them.  These are nothing short of savages in suits who feel no shame at all in demanding all the political niceties and protocol due a government representative, while acting in the finest tradition of their predecessors who stood on balconies in Munich in 1972 clutching machine guns and wearing ski masks.

The only thing that has changed is our willingness to play along with the charade to the point of allowing our enemies to quantify the value of spilt Jewish blood.