A melancholy line was drawn under Israel's 2006 war with Lebanon yesterday when two black coffins were unloaded at a United Nations base on the Israeli-Lebanese border and the bodies of two kidnapped Israeli soldiers were returned to their homeland. In exchange for the remains of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, army reservists whose seizure by Hezbollah sparked the 34-day conflict in Lebanon, Israel released a terrorist serving a life sentence for the deaths of four Israelis as well as four other Lebanese prisoners.

The exchange has been the subject of tortuous negotiations by a German intermediary for two years. It sparked very different reactions in the two countries. In Lebanon, a brass band, banners, a red carpet and yellow Hezbollah flags greeted the freed prisoners, and in Beirut the Government declared a public holiday as the President, Prime Minister and Speaker of parliament waited at the airport to greet Samir Qantar, imprisoned since 1979. In Israel, by contrast, there were no ceremonies. The families of the dead soldiers wept as they saw the television pictures of the coffins, newspapers questioned the point of the swap and critics of Ehud Olmert, the embattled Prime Minister who ordered Israeli troops into Lebanon, said that the two men died for nothing.

Israel's readiness, however reluctantly, to go ahead with the exchange is, to many, surprising. It flies in the face of a long-declared policy of not negotiating with terrorists. It seems grotesquely unbalanced: Israel is willing to release four convicted terrorists, as well as scores of Palestinian prisoners later, in return for two corpses. And, most seriously, it perpetuates the cycle of hostage-taking - on both sides - by giving an incentive to kidnap or arrest people to use them as bargaining chips in future exchanges. Worse still, hostage-takers will conclude that in negotiations with Israel, even dead bodies have a value. Hezbollah made it clear when the two reservists were seized that they were being held to force the release of Hezbollah prisoners. Equally, Israel made no secret of wanting to keep Mr Qantar as a way of prising more information on the fate of Ron Arad, its missing pilot, from his captors.

Israeli newspapers yesterday voiced dismay over the exchange. But polls show public support. There is a deep belief in Israeli society that the State should go to whatever lengths to bring back its soldiers, alive if possible. There is a compact to return even their bodies to their families for burial in Israel. Such a belief is also strong among Israel's enemies, and as part of yesterday's exchanges Israel agreed to return the remains of 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters.

It is not for outsiders to question the emotional importance of this conviction. It is also churlish to complain that these swaps weaken the fight against terrorism without recognising that the real crime is the brutal kidnapping of soldiers and civilians in the first place. Significantly, Israel has made it known that it will no longer hold any Hezbollah prisoners - a clear attempt to break this squalid cycle. Lebanon's public rejoicing over the release of a man who aged 17 caused the death of four civilians is grotesque. But if the exchange has prompted a readiness for further dialogue on either side, it should be used. Losing face is less important than attempting to make peace, however gloomy the prospects.