Prisoner exchange? No:
Israel exchanged 5 Lebanese, among them a convicted mass-murderer, plus 190 bodies - for the remains of its two abducted servicemen
The state and the citizens of Israel have always been devoted to the protection of their missing soldiers. Today, on 16 July 2008 Israel exchanged 5 Lebanese, among them a despicable convicted mass-murderer, Samir Kuntar, plus 190 bodies - for the remains of its two servicemen abducted by Hizbullah in 2006.
Israeli soldiers always know that while they risk their lives to defend their citizens, their country will also do its utmost to retrieve them should they fall into the hands of the enemy. This is the tradition of Israel's deep reverence for human life and for its fallen. Both old Jewish ethics and new Israeli sense of morality support this principle, even if the price is almost unbearable.
However, the present ‘deal' seems to be particularly irrational and painful. Though it was not absolutely certain, intelligence said clearly that the abducted soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were dead. To release convicted murderers for dead bodies is not only too generous but also very dangerous in more than one sense. In the Ahmad Jibril precedence in the eighties Israel exchanged 6000 Arab fighters captured in Lebanon and released 70 convicted terrorists with blood of Israeli civilians on their hands - for freeing 5 Israeli soldier POW-s. Within 18 months Israel counted its 31 new civilian victims at the hands of those who were among the 70 released terrorists. Furthermore, such great successes for kidnappers of Israeli soldiers in non-combatant times are the strongest motivators for them to do it again next time. No wonder that Israel's two intelligence bodies, the Mossad and the Shabbak, strongly opposed the present deal.
At the end the emotional and humanitarian urge to ease the sufferings of the families of the soldiers won again in Israel against rational thinking. This is irrational, but at the same time is somehow also elevating. Click here to get more on Kuntar
See here the previous TAP call for action
