The first moments were dramatic in their simplicity. He got out of the car, pale as a trauma victim, unsure of his steps, looking confused and as if the sunlight had shocked his system a bit. We felt possessed with the desire to see another image, and another, and then the floodgates of the nation's emotions were released. The emotion built up slowly. His pallor, skinniness and shortness of breath; the wisdom of his responses to the Egyptian interviewer, delivered with a sigh of relief, showing that his cognitive abilities are not a cause for concern. And then the tears flowed. Not just any tears, but sobs of joy. Even for the significant minority who opposed the deal for Shalit's release. On Tuesday, the opposition did not stand a chance. The competition of images was between the tortured survivor, alive and beloved, and the next murder victim, unknown and anonymous. For five and a half years Gilad belonged to everyone, and everyone to him. The entire country fell under the spell of his family's unique charm. "Captivated by you," the singer Ilanit sang during a concert at the site of his capture. As one ceremony, helicopter ride and phone call led to another, the nation, affixed to their televisions sets, suddenly got used to the new reality. Tuesday was the apotheosis of joy. Until Gilad's image appeared on the television screen, the average Israeli had been enveloped in a deep sadness. His crossing the finish line began to dissolve that tension and sorrow.
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Only in Israel
Only in Israel do the prime minister, defense minister and chief of staff excuse themselves from their jam-packed routines, clear their schedules and fly across the country to shake the hand of a soldier kidnapped while on duty who has come home healthy and whole. Is this a good or bad thing? Right or wrong?
On Tuesday the answer was crystal clear. The deal swept away the objections of all its opponents. Benjamin Netanyahu made the decision, with Ehud Barak at his side. Both earned a lot of brownie points, in big and small ways. Several days ago, for instance, Industry Trade and Labor Minister Shalom Simhon (Independence) spoke before an audience. Defense Minister Ehud Barak was present and Simhon praised him for his part in ratifying the deal for Shalit's release. For the first time in a long time Barak heard words of praise attached to his name.
Some argue that Netanyahu and Barak should not have delivered speeches in this particular situation. Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres did not arrive to welcome the liberated Entebbe hostages when they landed in Israel. True, but that was a different Israel. The current prime minister and defense minister acted according to the norms of 2011. In addition, they needed to show that the government's decision was just.
Soon enough, tomorrow or the day after, the dust will settle. But the argument over whether or not this was a good idea will not. What we did was humane and at the same time dangerous, both kind and cruel. It provoked tears of joy and tears of grief, as well as empty talk and the blurting out of radical proposals for the future in order to quiet our conscience for the moment. These will not be disappear of their own volition.
The conduct of all involved needs to be examined: the IDF and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), the Mossad and the government. Ehud Olmert, too, who started out vowing that he would give nothing in exchange for the kidnapped Gilad and ended up offering to release 1,000 terrorists, but then changed his mind at the last minute and refused.
Netanyahu received two proposals. One through Haggai Hadas, supported by Barak-- which he turned down. The other mediated by David Meidan --which he accepted. He says he improved on the original deal. Yes and no. He improved it in the sense that he left five top Hamas prisoners in jail. He made it worse by allowing Hamas to conduct negotiations on behalf of Israeli Arabs.
In deliberating over the proposals, Netanyahu earned an important tailwind. Tamir Pardo, who replaced Meir Dagan as head of the Mossad switched his opposition to the deal to support for it. As did Yoram Cohen who succeeded Yuval Diskin as head of the Shin Bet.
Did Netanyahu make support for a deal a condition of Cohen's appointment? When the two met, the subject of Shalit did not come up. It also did not come up with Barak, whom Cohen met with only after he was appointed.
Even now, at the height of its glory, I believe that the deal struck was verboten. But the argument has become superfluous. The test of this deal will be in the results, if, God forbid, such results should arise.
Happy landings
There are different goalposts that can be used to tell the story of Israel's history. One of these is through plane landings. The Jewish state has rejoiced or lamented based on those who have entered her gates.
The first great celebration occurred with the arrival of the immigrant who rounded out the number of Jews living in their homeland to one million. His picture appeared in all the newspapers. He was anonymous and stayed that way.
Not to compare apples and oranges, but the media was also obsessed with Adolf Eichmann's abduction from Argentina to Israel, a move that put him in the seat of the accused and burned the meaning of the Holocaust into the collective consciousness in a way it was not before. Israelis were unified in their horror.
Israelis were worked up in a different way, but still unified in their emotion, two years later. Yossele Shumacher made aliyah with his parents from the Soviet Union. Due to their poverty, they handed him over to his shoemaker grandfather Nahman Shtarks. When their economic circumstances improved, the ultra-Orthodox grandfather refused to return him. He accused them of planning to return to Russia and baptise him as a Christian. A nerve-racking battle ensued. Shtarks was sent to jail but remained silent as to the child's whereabouts. As in the Eichmann case, not to compare apples and oranges, David Ben-Gurion once again instructed the Mossad chief, Isser Harel, to find the boy at any costs.
It was a late start. Yossele was passed from person to person. He was taken out of Jerusalem to the ultra-Orthodox moshav of Komemiyot but the police started to close in. Then a woman who beggars imagination came into the picture. Ruth Ben-David was a convert to Judaism who had served in the French underground against the Nazis. Her personal conduct was of a problematic nature and now she was recruited to employ her skills, forge her passport and take Shumacher out of the country dressed as a girl.
Only when Mossad agent Yehudit Nessyahu was sent to Brooklyn to track down Yossele, disguising herself as an ultra-Orthodox woman, did they manage to find him. Israel alerted the American authorities. Yossele was brought to a meeting with his mother and pretended not to know her, until he finally broke down.
His return to Israel in 1962 was accompanied by pomp and circumstance, in the style of the media at that time. Afterward, Yossele chose to sink into anonymity. He integrated into Israeli society with relative ease. In the IDF he served as an artillery corps officer. He chose a career as a social worker. A nice man from Ganei Tikva. He appeared devoid of trauma.
About 12 years later the tables were turned. Golda Meir, who had refused to hear about any deal to exchange IDF pilots from the War of Attrition in 1970, finally broke down following the Yom Kippur War. She accepted the conditions dictated to her for an exchange. A moving ceremony took place at the airport. There was nothing else to latch on to for succor.
More than two years later Israel celebrated the liberation of the survivors of the Air France plane hijacked to Entebbe. The celebrations were no less grand than those now greeting Gilad Shalit.
There were other ups and downs. Natan Sharansky arrived in Israel after nine years in Soviet prison. He was the most famous of the prisoners of Zion. His release was made possible through a circular deal that involved the U.S. and Soviet Union. Spies were exchanged for spies in a 1:1 ratio, with Sharansky thrown in for good measure.
When he arrived in Israel, political rivals Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir rushed to welcome him and to stand and sit to his right and left. Neither left him alone in the company of the other until the last camera had left the premises. Not even for a second.
That was optimism at its height. It not only testified to our great happiness at the release of the symbol of the prisoners of Zion, but foretold that a huge and blessed wave of Jews from the Soviet Union would soon wash over our shores.
The two most recent events were sad. Elhanan Tannenbaum was released only because Ariel Sharon forced it upon a weak majority of his ministers. The circumstances of the release of the Lebanon war captives Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, in which a Hezbollah representative abused their parents concerning their condition, reflected the zeitgeist following our defeat in the Second Lebanon War. Not so this time. The joy is unprecedented in nature. But this euphoria is contingent. As they used to say in the old-fashioned media of yore, time will tell.
Collusion-
A footnote. The compact signed between the commercial TV news operations of Channels 2 and 10 is filled with good intentions. Invading the Shalit family's privacy for another intrusive photo of the guest room or kitchen is unnecessary. Even the motive behind the signing of this compact conveys lessons learned. The straw that broke the camel's back was when pushy photographers invaded the privacy of the Ramon family after their son Assaf was killed in a plane accident. The bereaved mother and widow was photographed using a telescopic lenses in her backyard, deep in grief. Grief too heavy to bear.
Shalit's circumstances are different. They have a happy ending. But the precedent is worrisome. Because we are talking about a kind of collusive agreement between Israel's two media giants. Today, they have signed a positive and good agreement but "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." What if in the future the two media empires collude to suppress revelations that might be embarrassing to their cronies? It is good that they did this, but they need to abstain from such agreements in the future.
For the sake of the next kidnap victim
Another side note: While Israel does its soul-searching over the Gilad Shalit affair, it must call international organizations to account for the fact that over five and a half years they failed to force Hamas to allow a representative of the Red Cross (or at least the Red Crescent) to visit the cell of the captive Israeli soldier. Hamas is an organization that bends with pressure. It has many interests in the international arena. It needs the international community. The Red Cross --perhaps with the assistance of U.N. bodies -- could have forced it into accepting such visits. We must press this issue for the sake of the next kidnapee.
