Giving in to terrorism

Selective sympathy trumps

common sense

By Ralph Dobrin

Author of “How to Avoid Armageddon”

To order the book click: www.amazon.com  type: how to avoid Armageddon

I bet that not one in ten thousand people in Israel remembers Eyal Benin, Shani Turgeman or Vasim Nazal. They were also caught in the July 12, 2006 Hizbollah ambush that led to the fatal abduction of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. No one remembers Eyal, Shani or Vasim – except their families, friends and army comrades because, well … they were simply killed in that ambush. Also another five conscripts were killed in the tank that tried to give chase to the kidnapping assassins. Their names are never mentioned either. The families of Gadi Musiev, Alex Kushnirski, Yaniv Bar-On, Nimrod Cohen and Shlomo Yirmiyahu grieve alone. Another 114 Israeli soldiers were killed in the war that followed. The public doesn’t remember them either.

And that’s life. You just can’t keep thinking about so many lives so tragically snuffed out. In the same way the general Israeli public knows very few of the names of the tens of thousands of soldiers who have died in Israel’s many other battles, most of them while actively trying to defend the nation.

Most bereaved families try to get on with their daily routines after their loss. For many the grief lasts for the rest of their lives. They grieve anonymously and that’s probably the way they want it. In some cases, for a day or two television and radio crews interview them and then they are forgotten.

But Israeli combatants captured by terrorist forces elicit far more media coverage. Their plight sounds absolutely nightmarish. Their families spend years of uncertainty, wondering endlessly whether their sons, fathers, brothers are even alive and if so, how badly have they been wounded? How are they being treated? How are they bearing up under the strain of incarceration at the hands of some of the nastiest people on earth? It’s natural for the public to feel enduring sympathy for the families and for the captured soldiers themselves. The media and the politicians nurture that sympathy by giving the subject of one hapless young man in Gazan captivity, Gilad Schalit and two mutilated bodies somewhere in Lebanon, an enormous amount of attention. Thus, for the newspapers and television channels there are more rating points to be gained, while the politicians have yet another subject that helps them obscure the perennial issues of unsolved national importance, which they are supposed to be handling.

So one can understand the media and the politicians for dealing so intensely with the subject. And one can certainly understand the families of these young men. They are simply doing what must be natural in such freak circumstances – they are trying to move heaven and earth to get their sons, husbands and brothers home again – in one piece or in a body bag – and everything else be damned.

THE NEED FOR SOBER ASSESSMENT
However, the situation demands suspension of emotion and a deadly sober assessment on the part of the political and military leaders, and the public should be lending them their support. A major consideration should be the fact that negotiations with terrorists gives them legitimacy in their murderous efforts, and encouragement to keep repeating their evil. By offering them any agreement gives them complete victory and opens the way for the next kidnapping.

Releasing hundreds of prisoners (sometimes even thousands) leads to many of them returning to their careers of terror and the murder of yet more innocent people. This has been the case over and over again. It’s particularly self-defeating when imprisoned terrorists are freed in return for the bodies of two or three soldiers. When it comes to the release of a live captured soldier, former Israel Army Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon, one of the few public figures to speak out against making a deal with the Hizbollah, said: “In some situations, the price to pay as part of the deal is much heavier than the price of losing the captive soldier.”

Soon after the Six Day War Arab terror groups began making attempts at kidnapping and hostage-taking of Israelis. At first, the policy of Israeli governments was total refusal to negotiate with the terrorists. A crack army unit would immediately be despatched to engage the terrorists, who were usually killed, sometimes with collateral death of a number of their hostages.

The first time an Israeli government agreed to negotiate with terrorists was in July 1968 (exactly 40 years ago) following the hijacking of an El Al airliner by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. A plane flying from Italy to Israel was hijacked and forced to land in Algeria. The hijackers demanded the release of 1,200 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons. Under the cirumstances Israel was powerless to do anything but agree to negotiations. The Algerian authorities managed to achieve the release of all the passengers and Israel freed 16 Palestinian prisoners.

This incident was followed by numerous hijackings and kidnappings with the intention of gaining world attention and releasing prisoners from Israeli jails. The most spectacular outrage was during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich when eleven Israeli athletes and trainers and one German police officer were killed, during a botched German attempt to free the hostages.

There were also a number of truly heroic rescue operations by Israeli armed forces, the most incredible was the Entebbe rescue in 1976.

Subsequent Israeli governments swore never to submit to terrorists’ demands, but this resolve crumbled in 1985 when Israel swapped more than 1100 Palestinian terrorists for three of its soldiers, who had been captured by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In 2004, Israel released over 430 Arab and Palestinian prisoners and terrorists in exchange for the bodies of three of its soldiers and a retired army colonel-turned gambler and drug dealer who had previously been ensnared by the Hizbollah.

Now coincidentally, poignantly close to the 30th anniversary of Israel’s most famous rescue mission – the raid on Entebbe in Uganda – Israel is closing a deal with the Hizbolla on the release of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. In the light of previous prisoner exchanges, negotiations (through a third party) might seem warranted. Hizbolla’s demands seem quite reasonable by Arab terror groups’ standards – in the return for the bodies of Regev and Goldwasser, Israel agrees to release five Lebanese prisoners. The trouble is that one of these people is Samir Kuntar, as ruthless a murderer if there ever was one.

On April 21, 1979, Kuntar and four other terrorists infiltrated Israel from Lebanon. Kuntar entered the Nahariya apartment belonging to Danny and Smadar Haran. In course of a rampage, Kuntar forced Danny and his four-year-old daughter Einat to the beach below. There he shot Danny in the head and then drowned him in the sea. He crushed Einat’s skull on a rock with his rifle butt. He was caught by Israeli security forces and sentenced to multi-life imprisonment. Ever since, his name has frequently come up in talks about swapping terrorist prisoners in Israeli jails for kidnapped Israelis held in Lebanon.

Cutting a deal with the Hizbolla doesn’t just mean awarding them an incredible prize for their kidnapping of Regev and Goldwasser two years ago. It will act as any open invitation to keep kidnapping Israelis and Jews everywhere in the world. Also, why should this ploy be limited to terrorist organizations? Why not the mafia every time one of their bosses or henchmen is arrested and sentenced to prison? And what about flouting the process of justice. Samir Kuntar is a despicable murderer who will go free in return for two body bags. No thought about the feelings of the wife and mother of the people he so brutally murdered! No thought for the families of thousands of Israelis murdered by other terrorists.

Many people point out that a soldier must be reassured that his country will stand behind him completely if he is taken prisoner. That’s how it should be – to a limit. Every soldier should know that in the event of war his country will do everything possible to minimize the chance of his slaying or injury on the battlefield. But it is impossible to guarantee absolute immunity to death or injury. And of course every soldier knows this. Every soldier knows that there is a limit to how much he can be protected against enemy fire and that when he goes into combat he might be killed. He accepts it. It’s the same with the kidnapped prisoner. Everyone must know there is a limit to what a country is willing to bargain in a prisoner deal.

TERRORISM SHOULD BE PUNISHED WITH ABSOLUTE RUTHLESSNESS
Retaliation to terror should be in the form of dreadful deterrent – similar to the way that Prime Minister Olmert sent Israel’s air force into action immediately following the abduction of Regev and Goldwasser – bombardment of vital installations – preferably connected with terrorist organizations, together with a demand for the immediate release of the hostages. But ridiculously, two years ago, Israel was not prepared to deal with the retaliatory rocket bombardment of Northern Israel. That was utterly unforgiveable because every seventh-grade kid in the country knew that for a number of years prior to the outbreak of the war, the Hizbolla organization had tens of thousands of rockets aimed at northern Israel. They should have been destroyed the moment they were installed, which began almost immediately after Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in the year 2000. Mr. Olmert was not solely responsible for that unforgiveable shortcoming. Lessons should have been drawn from this fact. The inability to cope with massive rocket attacks on Israel’s civilian population, renders her unable to exact appropriate deterrent action against the terror organizations and this situation, it has been said by sources in higher circles, is being remedied. If not the bungling on Israel’s part will continue and the scope of the terror from the north will erupt again in the future and probably be far more worse than ever before.

Meanwhile in the south, Hamas is demanding the release of 1,000 terrorists now in Israeli jails in exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilat Schalit. Most of them are convicted murderers including the fiends behind the Seder massacre at the Park Hotel in Netanya where 30 people were murdered on March 27, 2002. What kind of bearing will the release of a satanic murderer in return for the bodies of Regev and Goldwasser, have on the outcome of the negotiations regarding Gilat Schalit?

Caroline Glick of The Jerusalem Post recently wrote: “It is impossible to know precisely how many Israelis will be killed in the future if the deals now on the table are approved. But past experience shows that at a minimum, dozens of Israelis now innocently going about their business will be murdered by the terrorists Israel releases. And at a minimum, (in the future) one or two Israelis will be abducted by Hamas or Hizbullah or one of their sister terror organizations. They will be abducted in Israel or while they are travelling abroad and they will be brought to Lebanon or Gaza and the cycle of blood extortion and psychological warfare will begin anew.”

Actually, the Regev, Goldwasser and Schalit families, in their determined and understandable quest to have their sons returned, have become powerful, compelling voices for Hizbullah and Hamas.

Nathan Sharansky, the former prisoner of Zion, once said: “As a prisoner, it is important to know that your country is doing everything it can to secure your release. But it is also true that you are not willing to be released at any price. There are things that are more important than your personal survival.”

Everything should have been done to have prevented the abduction in the first place – the Hizbolla should not have been allowed to build up their rocket arsenal, thus hamstringing Israel. But once Israel had retaliated, following the abduction of Regev and Goldwasser, she should have perservered until the Hizbolla was vanquished and their rocket arsenal destroyed. Also, in the Israel of former times, it would have been more likely that those northern residents cowering under rocket fire would have been summarily and properly looked after during the fighting.

It all boils down to two things – a leadership capable of making the right decisions and a public that’s actively serious about ensuring the tenure of such a leadership. As personally tragic as the abductions have been, they really represent small potatoes in the the overall picture. Unable to contend with midgets Hamas and Hizbollah, how will Israel contend with a real monster like Iran. With Mr. Olmert running things? With the present ongoing mood of appeasement with fanatical evil? With the inability to see the overall picture because of a locked focus on small details – albeit heart-wrenching? With such an outlook the future portends to be a lot more tragic!

But I am a firm believer in the Law of the Pendulum. Right now, it must be reaching the end of its present Chelmic swing because there just has to be a limit to the amount of time that silliness continues to determine the affairs of any country. Soon that swing will be reversed. We all have to be part of that swing.

For more on Israel’s survival: www.israelandtruth.org

 

To order “How to Avoid Armageddon” click: www.amazon.com  type: how to avoid Armageddon