By David Isaac, Shmuel Katz Blog
Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit has been released. In exchange, Israel will release 1,027 terrorists, among them murderers sentenced to consecutive life sentences. Needless to say, ‘life sentence’ does not carry the same force in Israel as it does in other places.
Those Israelis who have greeted this news with euphoria argue that Shalit has suffered, his family has suffered, and so everything must be done to release him. This myopic view ignores the suffering of those families who seek justice for the death of loved ones murdered by the terrorists about to be released.
Israelis in favor of the deal may plausibly argue that Shalit is still alive and his life takes precedence over those now dead. Nothing can be done to save them, but something can be done to save Shalit. This, too, is myopic, because it ignores those Israelis to be done to death by the unrepentant murderers back on the street.
Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs, Moshe Yaalon, estimates that the deal will result in the murders of tens, if not hundreds, of additional Israelis. “[It] will be a great victory for Hamas, and from our perspective, a surrender to terror. The deal will meaningfully damage deterrence. We’re obligated to the life of Gilad Shalit and to bring him home, but we’re also obligated to the lives of Israel’s citizens.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, “In 2004, Israel exchanged several hundred Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli held captive by Hezbollah (and the remains of three soldiers). Drawing on government figures, Nadav Shragi noted in a report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs that ‘those freed in the deal had murdered 35 Israelis’ by 2007.”
Unfortunately for those condemned to die, they do not yet have a face. Whereas Shalit’s face has been plastered everywhere for the past five-plus years. Gilad Shalit’s parents, aided by a sympathetic media and public, have pressured Israel’s government to get him home – to do whatever it takes to get him home – a natural position for any parent to take.
There is no counter to this pressure. But let’s say, for argument’s sake, we knew in advance those (let’s say 100), to be killed as a result of this deal. The parents of the hundred would establish a tent in front of the prime minister’s residence, as Gilad Shalit’s parents have done, and it would be larger, as it would have to fit 99 more families. Can one imagine the effect their emotional appeal would have on Israeli public opinion? Needless to say, there would be no such deal as the one now before us.
A recent article in The New York Times attempted to explain the Israeli attitude that makes this lop-sided exchange possible. “When Israelis say they view the seized soldier, Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, as their own son, they mean it,” the article said.
But from the hypothetical above, we can see that Israeli identification with Shalit would end for those parents whose sons were to die in his stead. It is impossible they would choose Shalit’s son over their own. It is true that Gilad Shalit’s parents would do anything to save their child. It’s equally true of every other parent in Israel.
In the real world, those who are to die cannot be known, so it becomes a matter involving all of Israel’s citizens, and thus a matter of national interest.
In “Government’s Duty” (The Jerusalem Post, June 7, 1985), Shmuel wrote of another mass prisoner exchange, the Jibril agreement, which took place on May 21, 1985. Over 1,000 terrorists were released for three Israeli soldiers.
Not a single national interest was served by the decision of a government elected to serve the national interest, when it decided to release 1,150 terrorists, including hundreds of convicted murderers. On the contrary, it undermined every relevant national interest. It damaged the security of the people, its morale and its sense and image of sovereignty.It has given, directly, a new lease of life to the Arab terrorist movement. Not only those freed but, perhaps even more significantly, the youth of the whole Arab people is now absorbing a campaign of inspirational propaganda, on Israel’s moral weakness and indeed contemptibility, on the reduced risks for captured Arab heroes, on the assurance that there will always be available at least a handful of Israeli hostages from an Israel dominated by tearful mothers. …
It is worth noting that Hamas has already said that it plans to capture more soldiers. It would defy logic for them not to do so. They captured an Israeli and were rewarded with 1,000 more terrorists. Why not capture another Israeli and get still 1,000 more?
Can Israel stop the vicious cycle? Yes, by relearning a simple truth it once knew but has since forgotten. As Shmuel wrote in the same article:
For a time, Israel did stand firm in the face of terrorist blackmail, It did serve as an example to the world. And as long as it showed firmness, and wherever physically possible took military action against hijackers and kidnappers, the terrorists responded by keeping their demands within comparatively modest bounds.The Labour government did sin on several occasions in negotiating with the terrorists, but in July 1976 its Entebbe operation raised steeply Israel’s prestige and the people’s morale.
When the Likud came to office, it proved that while it was capable, on the one hand, of carrying out the Litani military operation against the PLO, it was capable of outdoing the Labour Party in diplomatic bumbling. In 1979, it paid with 76 released terrorists for one Israeli civilian.
After 1979, the floodgates were opened. The price increased progressively. Negotiators, in effect, became couriers, delivering the terrorist leaders’ demands. From 76-to-one in 1979, we reached 380-to-one in 1985.
Only a conscious, radical change in the government’s conception of its obligations to the nation and in its behaviour can put an end to the dangerous mindset which has established itself in the management of the affairs of an embattled Israel.
A vital element in such a change is the revival and maintenance of the principle of not negotiating with the terrorists. For cases where breach of the principle is unavoidable for purposes of “exchange,” standing rules for negotiation must be laid down and must include a prohibition of negotiators’ consultation with families of prisoners.
And crucial it is that, at least, Israel apply the law which permits the imposition of the death sentence for murder.
As Shmuel writes, a death penalty in Israel exists. Its vigorous application may be the only thing to prevent future prisoner exchanges.
Israel’s leadership has shown itself time and again unable to withstand the political pressure that follows each new abduction. Prime Minister Netanyahu understands the dangers. In the 1990s he wrote, “Prisoner releases only embolden terrorists by giving them the feeling that even if they are caught, their punishment will be brief. Worse, by leading terrorists to think such demands are likely to be met, they encourage precisely the terrorist blackmail they are supposed to defuse.” Yet, when faced with the choice, Netanyahu collapsed.
The only thing left then is to deny Israel’s leadership the choice by creating a situation wherein there are no terrorists to exchange.
Not Stateside it isn’t. An American adolescent boy, if he’s never been to bed with anybody, will TAKE a virgin (if she’ll have him) — but given a choice, he’ll go for a woman who can give him the best ride. That presumes some experience.
Maybe it’s different Down Under. [I think that’s where you are, yes?]
Given context, I imagine you meant HAMAS leaders.
This article by Jamie Glasgov discusses homosexuality in Islam and how it produces Islamist terror. Boys of the Taliban
Are you serious Dweller? Thats all (sorry, most) adolescent males think about – ie – getting laid with virgins.
But I agree with your main argument.
During the Iran/Iraq war the mullahs gave gullible kids plastic keys (to heaven) before they sent them into mine fields. The Mullahs didn’t do it themselves.
Hamas, likewise, cynically recruits the poor, gullible and desperate to act as as suicide bombers. None of the leaders have done so.
We all know Haniyah was hiding like a scared rat in a cellar during cast lead and Hezbollah leaders were, and still are, hiding in cellars.
A change that went from one direction to another
is a change that can go back in the other direction again.
It takes a decision.
That’s what they want you to think.
But I’m not sure it’s actually true, Andrew.
I rather DOUBT that it’s true of the older guys who recruit them and organize them and prepare them, and send them off on their death missions.
It’s always easy to get kids to kill & die, and all the rest of it; kids are malleable, and gullible — and frankly stupid. ALL kids are, in some ways, if you think about it; that’s part of what it means to BE a kid. It’s a time to experiment, find out what the world is about, how it works, etc.
That’s why they need protection & varying degrees of supervision. For these kids, of course, they often don’t find out till it’s too late to learn from the experience.
But think about it: Paradise as “72 virgins” isn’t an adolescent’s dream.
Did YOU fantasize about “virgins” when you were 16? — or did you simply fantasize about getting LAID? — and more likely with a woman who’d been around, and knew what she was doing?
Sorry; I don’t mean to be personal here, only to see this rationally.
It’s the projected imagining of what a 40- or 50-year-old ASSUMES an adolescent dreams about. The 40- or 50-year-old may be all burned out after screwing himself silly for a couple of decades; maybe HE dreams of virgins. But adolescent boys who are THEMSELVES virgins don’t dream of virgins. . . .
Furthermore, if these guys truly aren’t afraid of dying, the young ones OR the older ones, then how come water-boarding — which, by all accounts, prompts the sensation & expectation of death/annihilation — WORKS?
I mean, whatever you may THINK of the practice — if it prompts somebody to do whatever it will take to get it to stop, because it feels like dying — then does that not suggest that the subject is indeed just as much afraid of dying as anybody else?
Right on, Norman. Churchill’s words after Munich should be haunting Netanyahu from the grave right now.
“This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup that will be proferred to us year after year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time”.
AS I already mentioned, its going to be very difficult to change how Israeli leaders think.
Decades of surrender to terrorists is a habit hard to shake, reinforced by millenia of Jewish submissiveness to Arab dictates.
Establishing pride and self-respect is the first thing Jews must do.
A nation without it, won’t be for long in this world.
Yaalon should have immediately resigned – and together with Danny Danon either did a “coup” within the Likud to get rid of Netanyahu or form another party, for after all, Bibi is nothing more than “Kadima Heavy” – he is as willing to appease and capitulate as his former girlfriend Livni is.
A country that uses its own military and paramilitary thugs like Shabak (which is turning more and more into Israel’s version of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards) to drive Jews from their own homes; a country that pisses on the graves of nearly a thousand of its citizens, mainly women and children to releases scores of murderers including many who participated in some of the worst atrocities in Israel’s History (think if Obama had ordered the release of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and all of the prisoners held in Gitmo for one American soldier), a country whose leaders are corrupt, crooked cowards (ironically like Obama, but at least he gave orders to terminate Bin Laden – Bibi kept these bastards alive so they could live and go free), many of whom like ehud barak have blood of the victims on their own hands, they who could have gotten Shalit out had they hermetically sealed Gaza off from ALL aid, including the shipments of food and medicine they STUPIDLY shipped across the border, then began carpet bombing the dump (unlike all of those WORTHLESS “pinprick” strikes) without this shameful and stinking capitulation – well, that kind of country that lacks self-respect and hypocritically prides itself on saving one life when 1000 others died for nothing, well, that country doesn’t deserve our respect…Worse, Bibi’s decision shows he’ll do nothing when Ahmadinejedad tests his first bomb – in the next six months. After all, he’ll be too busy bussing Obama’s arse.
I am glad that the Dutch Israeli who practically lost his entire family save for a burnt, battered, baby at the Sbarro has had enough and will be leaving Israel. I hope that many of the other victim families do the same – because the so-called government of Israel has proven without a shadow of a doubt that not only will they drive these people from their homes, they won’t protect them either.
Can’t say i agree with the death penalty. They would probably enjoy being sent to their 72 virgins.
The problem is that Cast lead was called off before Hamas capitulated. If Hamas, hezbollah etc know that every hostage taken will result in complete and utter destruction of their societies and there is no safety in hiding in bunkers for their leaders, they’ll stop taking hostages.
Exactly right! I watched BBC TV’s piece about Galid’s release and had to turn it off when the leftist media and the Muslims turned it into propaganda against Israel. The Brit newsperson was commenting that now the Palestinians could return to their wives and children. What bull. They will return to bombing making and more terrorism. Hopefully there will be more “work accidents” which will kill the terrorists and save the lives of innocent Jews.