A license to kidnap
By Yoel Marcus
Haaretz, January 30, 2004
Here, people are being blown up; and in Beirut, they're celebrating. This "successful deal" in which three bodies and one Israeli citizen have been exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners is not only no excuse for a party; it's a national scandal.
Our eyes see Nasrallah mocking us at a live press conference, tormenting the parents of the dead soldiers, and the hidden red-head in every one of us wishes that a bolt of lightning would come down from the heavens then and there, and smash him right between the eyes.
Our ears hear the unbelievable - that Mustafa Dirani, who held, tortured and finally sold Ron Arad, is not only being set free unconditionally, but is suing Israel for NIS 6 million in compensation for being tortured under interrogation. The only thing left in this farce is to ask him how he wants the money - in travelers' checks, euros or dollars?
While we watch our every word lest the transaction go awry at the last minute, Nasrallah calls Israel the enemy and pledges to go on kidnapping. Israel has even given him a bonus, in the form of a mine map for South Lebanon. That will make it easier to approach the border to pick up a few more hostages; and while he's at it, he can move his missiles into place for the day he decides to surprise us with a barrage that reaches as far as Hadera. Nasrallah should send the government of Israel a bouquet of flowers.
From deal to deal, from swap to swap, Nasrallah has ballooned into a dangerous military threat to Israel. It's hard not to agree with General Lahad, who bitterly told an Army Radio interviewer: "Nasrallah knows how to handle Israel. I was Israel's friend and got a knife in the back."
If he meant that Israel is susceptible to pressure, he wasn't far from the truth. Israel's Achilles' heel is exposed for all to see, especially when it comes to negotiating with terrorist organizations, and even more so when parents are around to put on the squeeze. After the Jibril swap, in which Israel released 1,150 terrorists, among them mass murderers, Yitzhak Rabin confessed that he couldn't withstand the parents' pressure. According to a report in one of the newspapers, Sharon wept as he told the parents of one of the three soldiers abducted at Har Dov that the Israel Defense Forces knew right after the kidnapping that they were no longer alive.
Israel's policy until 1983 was not to bargain with terrorists, not to allow itself to be blackmailed, and not to pay ransom to free hostages. The Sabena, El-Al and Air France hijackings ended without casualties and without Israel paying any kind of ransom. The case of the TWA plane that was hijacked and diverted to Damascus ended with two Syrian pilots being exchanged for two Israelis being held in Syria.
The principle of prisoners for prisoners and bodies for bodies went out the window when Yitzhak Shamir came to power. In 1983, he freed 4,550 Lebanese terrorists being held at Ansar in exchange for six soldiers. What began as an outgrowth of the IDF myth that casualties are never left on the battlefield became a macabre Turkish bazaar with bereaved parents and the media metamorphosing into steamrollers, flattening the government of Israel into submission.
One can only stand in awe of Batya Arad, Ron Arad's late mother, for putting a clause in her will that no live terrorists be exchanged for her son's body. One brave and virtuous woman amid the whining and self-pity that accompanies Israel's attempts to bring home its dead.
Hezbollah, it is worth bearing in mind, is a by-product of the Lebanon War. By ripping the ethnic fabric in Lebanon, Israel woke up the Shi'ites and strengthened the Shi'ite Amal movement from which Hezbollah was born. The turning point was the "understanding" reached in the wake of Operation Grapes of Wrath that created a lethal asymmetry: Israel would not fire at their villages if they didn't shell our settlements in the north. It was this agreement that turned our soldiers in South Lebanon into sitting ducks.
Hezbollah took credit for our withdrawal from Lebanon. Now, in cahoots with the manufacturer of suicide-bombers, Islamic Jihad, it has become the protector of the Palestinians and the liberator of its prisoners - and hence, our biggest strategic threat on the northern border.
In entering into the current transaction, Israel has not only turned Nasrallah into a glorious victor. It has granted him a license to kidnap - and the motivation to kill those who fall into his clutches. Israel will pay generously, no matter what.
This will not go down in history as Israel's finest hour.
