When is the price too high?

It is often said that, in Israel, the life of one Israeli soldier is immeasurably more valuable to all Israeli people than are the lives of its enemies to their own people.  On the face of it, the reason for this is obvious – Islamists, as we are so often reminded, love death, whereas Israelis and other civilised people love life.   Of course what we are not told is that those who instruct and inculcate into them this love of death would not dream of leading by example, (with the notable exception of Nizar Rayyan) preferring rather to send out the rank and file to die instead, and to pay blood money provided by Iran and Saudi Arabia to their grieving families.

Israelinurse has written of the agonising choices faced by the Israeli government – whether to allow Islamist murderers in Israeli custody to go free, and probably to murder again, in exchange for the release of Israeli soldiers captured by Hamas or Hizballah, or to refuse to do so.

Nowhere is this agony better encapsulated than in the continued captivity of Gilad Shalit, kidnapped in a cross-border raid and kept in solitary confinement for over four years, without access to the International Red Cross and in breach of his human rights, by Hamas, an entity which on the 21st anniversary of its formation in Gaza, sank even lower in depravity when it chose to pillory him and to mock his parents’ grief in front of a cheering crowd of thousands.

The world media has hitherto virtually ignored Gilad Shalit’s plight, preferring rather to focus on the wrongs allegedly done by Israel to those who hold him captive.  The International Red Cross has, I am assured, tried its best and will continue to do so, to “encourage” Hamas to allow them to visit Gilad, but without permission such a visit cannot happen.   The UN, weighted so heavily against Israel, is deafeningly silent, too.

Surprising then, is the Guardian’s slideshow coverage, (and the article here) of the march to Jerusalem by tens of thousands of Israelis, to urge Shalit’s release “at any price.”

The slideshow is interesting and, were it not for our long experience of the Guardian’s double standards towards Israel, would be almost heartwarming.  Tens of thousands of Israelis, hardly apathetic at the best of times, are united in one aim – to get Gilad freed.

However, am I alone in wondering whether the Guardian’s agenda is as pure as it first appears?   Is it reasonable to assume, given its reprehensible record of distortions hitherto, that it will manipulate this surge of popular support into something by which to beat the Israeli government if it does not agree to Hamas’ outrageous demands?   One clue might lie in its usual inappropriate use of a Palestinian child (see Number 7 in the slide show) to make Hamas’ point for it.

According to the Guardian article, Prime Minister Netanyahu has offered to release thousands of Palestinian prisoners but has refused (correctly in my opinion) to pay “any price” for Gilad’s release.  He knows full well the anguish of other parents and families of people murdered by terrorists from Gaza and elsewhere.   Israelis’ sensibilities are still inflamed about the release of Samir Kuntar to a hero’s welcome from Hizballah in Lebanon.

Kuntar was convicted in an Israeli court for murder of an Israeli policeman, Eliyahu Shahar, 31 year-old Danny Haran, and Haran’s 4-year-old daughter, Einat Haran, whom he battered to death against a rock. He was also convicted of indirectly causing the death of two-year-old Yael Haran by suffocation, as her mother, Smadar, tried to quiet her crying while hiding from Kuntar (see here for a harrowing account of the incident by Smadar Haran herself).   Netanyahu also knows that the Israelis’ reward for Kuntar’s release was the return of their two soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, kidnapped in the same way as was Gilad, in a cross-border raid before the last Lebanese war, but dead not alive.

In the light of that awareness, it is difficult to apprehend the anguish of Gilad’s parents (according to the article, his father has promised to remain in a tent outside the Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem until a decision is reached) and entirely understandable that they should want his release at any price.

However, the nature of the Islamist terrorist is to view any compromise by Israel as licence to perpetrate more infamy and outrage.  That being the case, even if Gilad were to be returned alive, some other family would in future be put through similar agonies of not knowing.

In any case, I very much doubt that Hamas would part with Gilad Shalit at all unless Netanyahu gave them everything they wanted and the Israeli Prime Minister could not do that.

he only thing that would satisfy Hamas is for Israel to disappear.

Addendum:

My colleagues have pointed out that picture in slide 12 the Guardian’s article about the march for the release of Gilad Shalit is an out-and-out steal by the Guardian from Getty Images.

And what gives the Guardian the right in the caption to that slide to designate Tel Aviv, rather than Jerusalem, as Israel’s capital?  True, they are not the first to do it but given that this is the Guardian, is this merely sloppy editing on their part and an “honest” mistake?   Or is it rather a Freudian slip which shows the Guardian’s animus towards an Israel with Jerusalem as its capital?

A read of Comment is Free’s archives should give the likely answer.

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