Israel Loses in Prisoner Swap With Hezbollah

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The New York Sun

TEL AVIV — No matter how you look at it, the prisoner swap with Hezbollah is a bad deal for Israel. But as the leaders of the Jewish state prepare to hand a major victory to a mortal enemy, they once more can look their fellow citizens in the eye and say they did everything they could for the Goldwasser and Regev families.

For years, Israelis have felt that the sense of close-knit family that characterized the early days of their unique country had been lost. During the last week, they got it back. Seven days of nationwide deliberations ended yesterday, with a decision by Prime Minister Olmert’s Cabinet to approve a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, through which the Iranian-backed Shiite group will give a hero’s welcome to a convicted killer, Samir Kuntar, and Israel will get to bury two soldiers who most likely died two years ago.

The swap, which is expected to take place in two weeks, is a terrible bargain for a country that said, when it went to war with Hezbollah — after the two soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, were snatched from their army post in July 2006 — that it wouldn’t bargain with kidnappers. During the Cabinet meeting yesterday in Jerusalem, Mr. Olmert said the two soldiers had either been killed immediately or died shortly after the Hezbollah raid.

To many Israelis, bartering live prisoners for dead bodies sets a dangerous precedent. Iran’s other regional ally, Gaza-based Hamas, is holding a live Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. What incentive would the leaders of Hamas now have to keep Corporal Shalit alive, knowing that they can get their operatives back for dead bodies?

Then there are the disturbing images of Hezbollah’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, bragging that his bellicose tactics are the only language the Zionists understand. In 1979 Kuntar killed an Israeli policeman and two little girls and their father in front of a horrified wife and mother, Smadar Haran. Kuntar is Druze, but the Shiite Mr. Nasrallah — not his rival, Lebanon’s anti-Iranian Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt — secured his release from an Israeli prison.

Under the proposed deal, Israel will free additional Lebanese prisoners and dozens of bodies of operatives who were killed as they infiltrated the country. Information about four missing Iranian diplomats will be exchanged for details about a missing Israeli airman, Ron Arad, who disappeared after his plane crashed over Lebanon in 1986. If Hezbollah gets so much for two dead bodies, how many Palestinian Arab terrorists who have murdered Israelis must be released in exchange for the living Corporal Shalit?

For these reasons, and others, the chief of Israel’s external intelligence, or Mossad, Meir Dagan, and the head of internal intelligence, or Shabak, Yuval Diskin, told the Cabinet yesterday that they did not support the proposed deal. Others, including the army chief of staff, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, recommended approving it.

A week ago, Mr. Olmert listened to those opposing the deal and postponed making a decision. Since then, President Sarkozy of France has been here for an emotional state visit; a cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza has been broken, presaging the resumption of deadly hostilities; Mr. Olmert’s coalition has been saved at the last minute after nearly collapsing; and Israelis have spent nights glued to their TVs watching the Euro 2008 soccer tournament. In any other country, such a surfeit of dramatic events might leave news editors breathless. But the top story in the Israeli press over the last week has almost uniformly been the emotional roller coaster of the families involved in the hostage crisis.

Ms. Haran should have been angry that the release of the killer of her husband and daughter was even being considered. Instead she wrote a letter to Mr. Olmert yesterday expressing solidarity with the Goldwassers and the Regevs. Corporal Shalit’s father, Noam, said he was happy the other families’ “nightmare is over,” although his own is far from over. Current and former army commanders said their top duty has always been to ensure that no soldier is ever left behind — dead or alive.

Some argued convincingly against the proposed deal, proposed by a U.N.-sanctioned German mediator, but in the end no one could look the relatives of three soldiers in the eye and say no. How could they tell the dignified Karnit Goldwasser that the price for her husband’s return, the price for ending her agony of uncertainty and doubt about his fate, is too high? For Israelis, she is family.

bavni@nysun.com


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