Israel Matzav

The Shalit fiasco: More than enough blame to go around

I now drive my 9.5 and 7-year old sons to school at the other end of the city on Sunday through Friday mornings (why is a long story). The bad news is that it's an hour or more each morning before my Talmud class in which I can no longer blog. The good news is that it means that I listen to more of Israel Radio during morning drive time. This post is mostly based on things I heard this morning. By the way, the kids' Passover vacation starts in two weeks, and then there will be three weeks in which that hour will be returned to me.

With the collapse on Tuesday of the 'negotiations' (and you will see in a minute why I put that term in scare quotes) to free kidnapped IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit, there is apparently more than enough blame to go around. Among those being blamed with some degree of justification are the Israeli government, which did nothing to advance Shalit's freedom over the course of the last two and a half years; the media, particularly Israel Radio, and two Hebrew newspapers - Yedioth and Maariv - which ran over-the-top campaigns to free Shalit that included overtly emotional appeals (use of a font made from Shalit's handwriting saying "save me" in the case of Maariv and use of his childhood pictures in the case of Yedioth - YNet's Hebrew language source) and shrill claims that 'no price' was too high; certain Knesset members who made similar claims; and the Shalit family, which placed enormous pressure on the government over the last two weeks to free Shalit at any price. All of the above were criticized by the IDF yesterday.

The more important question is where to go from here. One of the pundits on Israel Radio this morning pointed out that Hamas' demands have remained unchanged since Shalit was kidnapped three years ago, while Israel has continued to 'negotiate' with itself, agreeing to release more and more terrorists, while not yet reaching the 450 murderers demanded by Hamas. This is somewhat undercut by one of the claims that Hamas made this morning: That the negotiations failed over Israel's demand that some 90 of the terrorists be expelled abroad and not over the number of terrorists to be released.

For those who believe that Hamas is indifferent to its prisoners' release, that is apparently not the case, and perhaps that will provide Israel with an opening. Hamas demanded this morning that Egypt squarely blame Israel for the 'negotiations' (and I hope that in light of Hamas' unchanging demands versus Israel's eroding position you now understand why I put that term in scare quotes) failing. Apparently even if Hamas doesn't care about its own prisoners, the terrorists' families do care about them, and Hamas is at least somewhat answerable to those families. Hamas is also threatening to kidnap more Israelis, which is probably also a threat that is meant to speak to the terrorists' families.

If Egypt does blames Israel for the negotiations' failure, that would resolve the fate of another question raised this morning namely whether Egypt should be replaced as a mediator. It was pointed out this morning that Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman - who is the official mediator - was not present for a good portion of the past week, and that the Egyptians have to much of an emotional investment in the negotiations on behalf of their 'Arab brothers' to be a fair mediator. The suggestion made this morning was that German intelligence should mediate instead, as was the case with Hezbullah last year. Some of you may recall that Hamas made the same suggestion last summer after Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev's bodies were returned to Israel in return for mass murderer Samir al-Kuntar and a few lesser lights, and some 200 bodies of terrorists.

The most common suggestion that is being made today is to change the conditions under which Hamas terrorists are being held to more closely approximate the conditions under which Shalit is being held. Someone mentioned this in the comments to one of my posts last night, and this is in fact being discussed by the government.

While the government did not vote on any concrete proposal at the meeting, it did approve the establishment of a ministerial committee, headed by Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, to propose additional sanctions that Israel could use to "soften" Hamas's demands.

Among the proposals that the committee is expected to discuss, and which are to be brought to Sunday's cabinet meeting, measures to make the conditions in Israeli jails for Hamas prisoners more difficult, including restricting visitation rights, phone and telephone access, and newspaper and television privileges, and perhaps depriving them of electricity at night. The rationale behind this would be to make the conditions facing the Hamas prisoners somehow similar to Schalit's.

While the idea is appealing, I don't believe it will make a difference (no one in Israel is going to torture the Hamas prisoners while that is a possibility for Shalit if it is not being done already). In the long run, I don't believe it is capable of implementation either. We all know that if the Israel Prisons Service made these kinds of changes to the conditions under which the Hamas terrorists are being held, there would be an immediate appeal to Israel's Leftist Supreme Court, and in all likelihood an order to reinstate the previous conditions.

I may have more on this story later today as thoughts come to mind, but I have to run out to my morning Talmud class so this is it for now. The bottom line is that Gilad Shalit is not coming home, and while I was opposed to the kinds of exchanges being proposed for his release, I also empathize with his parents and family, who are apparently powerless to do anything to bring about his release.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:49 AM