Israel Matzav

Why isn't the IDF freeing Gilad Shalit?

On Monday morning, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Ashkenazi told a group of fresh IDF recruits that the IDF knows where Gilad Shalit is and who is holding him.

Speaking to new Armored Corps recruits at the IDF's Tel Hashomer base, Ashkenazi had said that "it is vital soldiers know that if something happens to them, there is someone who will make every effort bring them back."

"We know that Gilad Schalit is alive, where he is being held and by whom," he added. "We hope we can bring an end to this episode, just like we returned Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser."

I sure hope that the IDF does better than it did by Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser HY"D (may God avenge their blood). Regev and Goldwasser came back in black boxes. I hope Shalit comes back alive and walking, God willing.

In any event, the IDF is now 'downplaying' Ashkenazi's remarks.

The IDF Spokesperson's Office on Monday downplayed comments made earlier by IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi that Israel knew the location of captured IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit and who was holding him.

The army said there was nothing new in Ashkenazi's statement and that he merely meant that Israel knew the soldier was being held in Gaza by Hamas.

Am I the only one who doesn't buy that? Does anyone really believe that with all the 'collaborators' who help the IDF show up or send helicopters or drones at just the right time to take out Hamas terrorists, they haven't been able to figure out in more than two years where Gilad Shalit is being held?

The truth is that although Ashkenazi was not supposed to say so, the IDF does know where Shalit is, and does know who's holding him (and it's mostly not Hamas but the Dugmash clan - the same people who held Al-Beeb reporter Alan Johnston - they are now the only clan left in Gaza that operates semi-independently of Hamas). It's impossible that the IDF doesn't know where Shalit is after all this time with all of the intelligence operatives that the IDF has on the ground in Gaza.

In 1976, Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin gave the order and the IDF pulled off an amazing and almost completely successful rescue operation in Entebbe thousands of miles from home. In 1994, Rabin gave the order and IDF special forces tried to rescue kidnapped IDF soldier Nachshon Wachsman, who was being held in an Arab suburb of Jerusalem. Unfortunately, that operation was not as successful - Wachsman and one of his rescuers were killed along with the terrorists. But the government undertook both operations because it believed that it had a chance of success and because it was willing to risk the consequences of failure. Those governments were not willing to trade terrorists for prisoners and therefore, they thought of another way. And those governments undertook those operations because Rabin and his cabinet in both instances had something that the current 'government' with its miserable excuse for a 'prime minister' doesn't have.

A year ago, we were told that the IDF knew where Shalit was and had plans to free him. At the time, I speculated that if they tried, the terrorists would likely put a bullet in Shalit's head. That could still happen. But maybe it wouldn't. And maybe the IDF could come up with a plan that's smart enough and sneaky enough to free Shalit unharmed. Unfortunately, we don't have a government in power with enough you-know-what to try. They so fear failure that they ensure it through lack of effort. Instead, we have a group of cowards who are trying to clean the bloody hands of terrorists so they can set them free.

On Sunday, Israel freed Omar Abdel Razek, who was finance minister under Hamas when Israel seized him in June 2006. According to Hamas, Abdel Razek was freed by 'a judge.'

“The judge believed it was enough, the period that he served in prison," Nasser al-Shaer, a former Hamas minister, told Reuters of Razek's release.

"They have released him and he is on his way home". Israeli officials could not immediately confirm the release. Some 40 Hamas officials, including former lawmakers, remain in Israel custody.

Razek was one of half a dozen Hamas lawmakers and ministers arrested around the same time on suspicion belonging to a terrorist organization rejecting Israel's existence.

Those arrests came after gunmen captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid from Gaza in June 2006.

I don't believe that story for a second. Razek wasn't freed by a judge. He was freed by the Israeli government on its own initiative. Recall that the 'exchange' that culminated in Israel releasing Samir al-Kuntar, four lesser terrorists and some 200 bodies of terrorists, in exchange for the black boxes containing Goldwasser's and Regev's remains, started with a relatively innocuous exchange in which Israel deported convicted Hezbullah spy Nassim Nisr to Lebanon and in return Hezbullah sent Israel a box of body parts from the Second Lebanon War. Is Abdel Razek the Nassim Nisr of a deal with Hamas in which Israel will release hundreds of terrorists with blood on their hands in exchange for Gilad Shalit? I would bet on it.

This government hasn't got the courage to undertake an operation to free Shalit. But it has made a commitment to free him 'at all costs' (and then implied that it will never happen again - until the next time Hamas kidnaps a soldier). So it's going to release hundreds of terrorists to fulfill its 'commitment.' And God forbid we will pay with hundreds more Israeli dead.

UPDATE 4:30 PM

There's a great article by MK Arieh Eldad on Israel's military option in Gaza (yes, there is one) here.

There is a military option in Gaza. We can issue an ultimatum to Hamas that Israel would assassinate one of its leaders in Gaza or elsewhere every day if Gilad Shalit is not released at once. We can embark on a targeted operation based on existing intelligence information, or a broad operation if we lack such accurate intelligence information. We can kill every terrorist on the way, go from one house to the next, and while we’re at it blow up Qassam rocket workshops, arms caches, and tunnels. We can pulverize Hamas in Gaza as we pulverized the PLO in the First Lebanon War, and unlike what we did to Hizbullah in the Second Lebanon War (the reason we didn’t do it was not lack of power, but rather, deficient political and military leadership.)

The alternative is not only capitulation to terror and the release of thousands of murderers. The alternative is reconciling ourselves to Hamas’ military buildup and fortification, until its rockets reach Tel Aviv and Dimona – then, we shall have to enter Gaza and pay a much greater price because of our current cowardice, hesitation, and flawed political considerations, which come in place of decisive national considerations.

Gilad Shalit must not become the reason for avoiding a war on terror. If this materializes and this is the way adopted by Israel, terror groups will realize that they found the way not only to release the murderers in our jails, but also “their entire Palestine.”

Tomorrow, more soldiers will be abducted for the sake of Mount Dov (which they refer to as the Shebaa Farms,) and two days from now, they will kidnap more troops and demand that we withdraw from Hebron. They will demand Temple Mount in exchange for several abducted civilians, and if, heaven forbid, they take over a kindergarten, they’ll demand Arab autonomy in the Galilee.

There is no logical reason for them to stop, unless we stop and say: No more.

Read it all.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:17 PM