Is Bill Clinton the Key to Winning Gilad Shalit’s Release?
This week marked four years since Israel went head-to-head with Lebanon’s Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. The conflict lasted 34 days and displaced about a million Lebanese civilians and — temporarily — 3oo,000 to 400,000 Israelis. Both countries’ economies suffered. As rumblings of a 2010 rematch ripple throughout the region, hostage Gilad Shalit enters his fifth year in captivity.
Grabbed by Hamas during a raid on Israel’s Gaza border weeks before the July 2006 conflict broke out, Shalit has been held prisoner somewhere inside Gaza ever since. His parents have relentlessly petitioned the Olmert and Netanyahu governments to help secure their son’s release, and this month they organized a 12-day march to mark the anniversary of their son’s disappearance. The march received much media coverage and included the participation of hundreds of thousands, including celebrities Bar Refaeli and Zubin Mehta.
Despite requests for Shalit’s release from international human rights organizations, a UN fact finding mission, the papal nuncio to Israel, Egyptian intermediaries, U.S. and European officials, and even Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Hamas captors aren’t budging. Their demand: the release of over a thousand Palestinian security prisoners, many with Israeli blood on their hands and half of them Hamas members.
Israel’s government hesitates. Historically, policy has been to refuse negotiation with hostage takers. But, as senior political analyst Anshel Pfeffer told the Christian Science Monitor several years ago, Israelis “can come to terms with Israeli soldiers being killed, but we can’t come to terms with Israelis being taken as prisoners of war.” The last time an Israeli soldier was kidnapped, in 1994, the army launched a rescue operation that ended in the death of the kidnapped soldier, Nahshon Wachsman, and an officer involved in the failed rescue attempt.
“The popular feeling is that an Israeli citizen or soldier must not be in the hands of the enemy, so some impossible mission has to be done,” says Pfeffer. “The reality is, grin and bear it and deal with terrorists.”
During the 1994 Wachsman ordeal, one very memorable appeal to Hamas captors for the soldier’s release was put forth by then-President Bill Clinton. His words fell on deaf ears, and within twenty-four hours Wachsman was killed in the failed commando raid.
Sixteen years later, rumors plot Clinton in yet another Israeli soldier’s release scenario. According to press reports, Prime Minister Netanyahu asked the former president to step in as a mediator between his government and Hamas leaders in securing Gilad Shalit’s release.
The notion of Clinton being the ‘go to’ guy for the horrific fate which Schalit suffers is ominous indeed.
First, no one, but a mother whose child serves in the IDF-either as a regular or reserve soldier-can understand his parent’s unsustainable anguish.For the record, both my sons are IDF reservists.Therefore, as a mother, I understand that moving heaven and earth to free my children would be a small price to pay to free them.
However, a parent’s pain is NOT the way decision makers initiate policy, heaven forbid if they do so, then MANY more mother’s will suffer.Recall, the ‘Four Mothers’ of the first Lebanon War wrecked havoc-thanks Barak!-on our northern border, bringing Hizbullah to a world class terror force.Some fools and knaves NEVER learn.
That being said, what ‘price’ is Bill thinking is steep enough for Israel to pay in ransom of Schalit? 100 blood soaked terrorists, 1,000, 10,000, how many? Not only that, has he studied the nexus between released terrorists and those who went back to Jew killing?
Of course,we are tragically saddled with sub par leaders, not a statesman among the sorry bunch. A statesman would put this painful blackmail scheme by Hamas to rest by vociferously stating-”we have ZERO intention of paying blackmail for our dear soldier. What we DO intend on doing is, and Hamasnicks best listen up – for EVERY day that our dear Gilad languishes in Hamas hell, one of your guys will be killed, not beaten, not tortured, but killed. Not only that, but ALL privileges to Hamas prisoners will cease. How can we justify to our people that their brother-in-arms cannot even see a Red Cross rep, yet Hamas prisoners get an education, eat well, pray, mingle and even enjoy family visits, most likely conjugal too? Moreover,if this fails to move Hamas leadership, then lights out for Gaza, NO fuel and NO nothing”!
Leave it to our supine leadership to do none of the above. In fact, cowed by pressure from those who wish us ill-BHO, are you listening?-our leadership caved in to their demands to increase ! the food,(as if they are not fat enough) clothes, toys ! medications the Gazans receive, YET our Gilad remains in hell.
The point being, Schalit is used and abused as a political football, by both the likes of Clinton, who feted the godfather of terrorism(Arafat) more times than most see their own mothers when they leave home! As for our leaders, well, Schalit is useful only as long as they can opin over his ‘fate’.
Clinton-stay the hell out of it, we don’t need thousands more terrorists free to kill us!!
It is not the duty of the citizens of the State of Israel to sacrfice their lives to save the life or obtain the release of an Israel Defence Force soldier.
It is however the duty of an IDF soldier to sacrifice his life and/or freedom in defence of the State of Israel and her citizens.
It is equally the responsibility of the government of the State of Israel to arrest, imprison, and or kill Palestinian terrorists who have murdered Israelis, organized the murder of Israelis, abetted the murder of Israelis, and who to this day threaten to murder even more Israelis when they are released.
The parents of Gilad Shalit are to be pitied, but withal, their son Gilad is still alive albeit imprisoned.
This is not so for the children and other family memebers of those murdered or critically wounded by those still dangerous Palestinian terrorists still held in Israeli prisons and whose release the Shalits are demanding.
The moral for Israel is clear, the welfare of the many takes precedence over the welfare of the few. In this case, the welfare of the majority of Israelis has to take precedence over the release of one Israeli soldier.
I am a former IDF officer, I have had three sons serve in the IDF, and while I am sorry for Gilad and his family, I am not sorry enough to die for his freedom nor am I sorry enough to sacrifice my wife or sons, or any other Israeli for his release either.
If me or my sons were held prisoner I would still demand and expect that the Israeli government behave responsibly and not make a lopsided and dangerous prisoner exchange for us.
Curiously enough, when and if Israel trades hundreds of convicted and often happily self-confessed terrorists for one soldier, the world will not rise up as one and call this “disproportionate.” In the Middle East “disproportionate” is a word applied only to Israel, in which case it is a synonym for “effective.”
Yup, Clinton went to North Korea and groveled to get a couple Al Gore climate change foundation employee’s released from the Hermit Kingdom: current or former employees that had stupidly wondered into North Korea on mission for ????. That worked out real well. Shortly after the hostages were released to Clinton the North Koreans sank a South Korean destroyer killing most of its crew. How about a real no hostage policy for a change? Until Shalit’s released unharmed, the Israeli state should execute a high value “palestinian” convict everyday, preferably a leader type with blood on his hands. That should incentivize the the no hostage policy negotiations. If the “Palestinians” execute Shalit in response, fine, execute a hundred convicted high value “Palestinians the next day. Repeat as necessary.
Whether Clinton gets involved or not, the ultimate decision on any deal will be made by the Prime Minister of Israel.