Seeing Iran’s Success, Israel Mulls Kidnapping Americans Also

If adopted by Israel, that approach could yield significant financial, diplomatic, political, and strategic benefits.

Tel Aviv, August 25 – The Obama administration’s accommodating attitude toward Iran’s hostage-taking of Americans has prompted Israeli military and political policymakers to consider adopting a similar pattern of imprisoning Americans in exchange for generous ransom packages, Kol Israel radio reported today.

Mossad officials, senior military officers, and representatives of the Ministry of Defense and Prime Minister’s Office met several times this week to discuss the possibility of arresting and holding US citizens, either without trial or on trumped-up charges, as a way of gaining leverage in any dealings with Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. The report noted that Iran has increased its hostage-taking efforts after the Obama administration paid hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom money, and that if adopted by Israel, that approach could yield significant financial, diplomatic, political, and strategic benefits.

Military and government officials declined to comment on the story, but in her report, Kol Israel military affairs journalist Carmela Menashe detailed several proposals under consideration. The first, and, according to Menashe, the one that enjoys the most support among the policymakers, is a straight-up imitation of Iran’s methods: take American citizens, preferably military personnel, captive, and demand financial or political concessions from Washington.

The second, slightly less popular, policy, involves manufacturing tensions in the form of Americans “caught” spying against Israel or otherwise engaged in illegal activities against the Jewish State, also to generate diplomatic leverage. The third, and least likely to be adopted, calls for the torching of American consular facilities in the country, followed by claims that it was perpetrated by radicals, and that only by giving Israel billions of dollars, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital, and siding unequivocally with Israel in all international forums would empower the moderates to prevail.

Analysts agreed that Israel’s controversial nuclear program would probably also be involved. “I can’t see embarking on this course of action without aiming to achieve a similar legalization and legitimacy for the country’s nuclear weapons program to the one reached with Iran,” said Ben Caspit of Maariv. “It would be a golden opportunity. Of course Bibi would prefer the status quo and eternal conflict, so I can’t see him doing anything.”

Ron Ben-Yishai of Yediot Aharonot sounded a similar note. “The key here would be to achieve a strategic breakthrough at least on par with the Iran Deal,” he said. “That of course would mean acceptance of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, but Obama is clearly willing to be generous with captors, so we can probably also get him to increase the annual military aid package to ten billion dollars if we do it right.”

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