The fate of Gilad Shalit, thought resolved last night, is now again in doubt. Every problem needs a face, and Gilad's soft stare has become synonymous with the standoff between Hamas and the Israeli defense establishment. According to leaked reports, Hamas wants all of its 450 (or so) cadres released, though there has been talk of the group's agreement to have some released to Gaza, not to the West Bank, or even to have some go abroad. Israel is saying the number must be less, and is bargaining especially to release as few people as possible with "blood on their hands."
I have myself lost loved ones in a terrorist attack, and accept the claim that prison may only harden the desire to strike at Israeli civilians. I don't deny that there are serious moral questions, at least in the abstract, about democracies capitulating to terror groups. Yet I find it hard to see much value in the government's endless bargaining, which is engendering a public spectacle that often swings between soap opera and the The Price Is Right. Gilad's poor parents are camped outside the prime minister's residence, while a counter-demonstration of grief-stricken terror victims goes on across the street. Olmert's ministers are warning darkly about how Bibi Netanyahu's government will never offer as good a deal as the current government has. You can't tell bluff from spin.
FOR MOST ISRAELIS by now, the issue of bloody hands has come to seem particularly abstract. As
Haaretz's hard-headed economic columnist,
Nehemia Shtrasler, writes, "Who exactly doesn't have blood on his hands in the long war that has been raging in the Middle East?" The IDF has been willing to accept the deaths of perhaps 400 Gaza children to protect its soldiers in operation Cast Lead. Who in the country does not assume, given so much tit-for-tat, that there are new cadres to replace those imprisoned? Does having anyone behind bars mean that the IDF can somehow relax its guard? Has it weakened Hamas or changed the price to Israel of evading diplomatic concessions?
If there is a moral opportunity here, let it be a utilitarian one. If Gilad is home, then every Israeli soldier will know that he or she will, if captured, not be condemned to rot in some dungeon. If Gilad is home, then Hilary Clinton can get on with trying to draw Hamas into a unity government and a diplomatic process. If Gilad is home, then
Marwan Barghouti will be home, and can begin to build an alternative leadership to the failing Fatah group in Ramallah. If Gilad is home, then we can have a face for a page that has been turned.
What strikes me as particularly sad about this bargaining is that, like so much else our current crop of defense intellectuals touch, the question of an exchange does not clarify how Israel's long-term interests are served, but rather how long-term interests boil down to short-term deterrent power. If Hamas can be forced to compromise, so the argument goes, that is a sign that deterrence has been reestablished. But if Israel capitulates, giving Hamas what it wants, is that not a sign that deterrence has eroded?
Hamas--having virtually nothing to offer but steadfastness--has virtually nothing to lose by walking away. This does not mean Israel is weak. But, so the argument continues, Israel cannot let itself appear weak, or it will encourage terror, come to think of it, just like being strong and ruthless encourages terror. Either way, the question of deterrence distracts us from seeking an end to the occupation. I can already see some of these Hamas people, thirty years from now, sitting in the Cafe de Flore in Paris, giving melancholy interviews about the hubris of their mentors and horrors of their youth. I wish I could be sure that Gilad Shalit will be there as well.
Israel can and does arrest anybody they want for up to 6 months without charges, correct?
Talk about terrorism. They can sweep through neighborhoods at random, break down doors, arrest any young men in the apartment, and smear feces all over the walls.
Feel free to investigate, and to shed some tears for these terrorism victims.
"The IDF has been willing to accept the deaths of perhaps 400 Gaza children to protect its soldiers in operation Cast Lead."
Just to protect its soldiers, eh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB9JrEub4IU
March 17, 2009 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thirty years from now, those slaughtered Gaza children could have been raising families of their own, perhaps - by development or geography - free of the relentless threat that anti-personnel munitions might rip them to shreds at any moment. But, of course, they won't. They have become collateral damage in a conflict that never changes - except when it alters landscape, smashes homes and snuffs lives.
It's extremely difficult, from this distance - both in bloodline and geography - to feel much of anything about the future of Cpl. Shalit. Nevertheless, I do; I hopes he makes that metaphorical coffee date. He has a lot better chance of doing so than do Palestinean children of living lives with even a semblance of security and dignity.
March 17, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of topic, but were comments shut down on Ira Forman's post? Why?
March 17, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Forman's brief sells better without the troublesome discrepancies that surface in open debate.
March 17, 2009 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
They're back up. Go on: Egg my face.
March 17, 2009 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed who doesn't have blood on their hands. After the attack on Gaza, Can Olmert or any other Israeli leader honestly say they don't have blood on their hands.
I agree with you that sooner Gilad is released the sooner Marwan Barghouti is released. He is the one Palestinian who can unite West Bank & Gaza into a new political party. He has been making efforts from Israeli prison to launch a peace movement. Palestine needs a leader like hims because neither Bush plant Mahmoud Abbas nor radical Hamas command the respect of all of the Palestinians.
Olmert should bite the bullet and get a prisoner release deal done before leaving office so Gilad can come home and so can Marwan and hundreds of young Palestinians in Israeli custody. By doing this he can restore his credibility, otherwise his legacy will be a failed ill planned Lebanon war and a horrendous attack on Gaza.
March 17, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
ajazhaque,
Why would Hamas cut a deal to free the leader who would threaten their own power?
[Aside: Any relation to Farid Haque?]
March 17, 2009 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for taking what must be,for you, a difficult position.
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