A sigh of relief, and questions
The deal to release Gilad Shalit was made possible by a convergence of interests between Israel and Hamas. The Arab Spring brought a government to power in Egypt that lacks direction and is in need of some kind of achievement. This one came for nothing. Just some efforts at mediation.
Israel was also in need of a success. There has been a glut of troubles lately. Shalit is a welcome gift for any government. Even the opposition has to applaud it, as evidenced by the call of MK Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) for ministers of all parties to support the deal. Hamas is happy as well, since, like Israel, it was eager slap Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the face. Abbas' We've had enough speech in New York initialized the Israel-Hamas deal, symbolically if not actually.
On top of that, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus feels the ground burning under his feet. Syrian President Bashar Assad's hold on power is shaky. The entire Arab world has turned against the landlord, and this constitutes a threat to his guest. Hamas fears it may be forced to migrate to a different Arab capital, and not many remain available to it.
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This deal is a hard pill to swallow. It releases many murderers, in two steps. It allowed Mashaal to present himself on Tuesday as the leader of the Palestinian nation, much to the chagrin of leaders in Ramallah. Not only will 1,000 terrorists be released, most of them cruel murderers, but Hamas has made Israel recognize all Palestinians as being cut from a single national cloth. According to media reports, Arab Israelis will also be released as part of the deal. This is a significant, strategic, conceptual blunder. It would have been better to release a lot more murderers from the territories than a handful of people with Israeli identity cards.
This is a blatant failure of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the Mossad. Former Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin and former Mossad head Meir Dagan blathered on endlessly, opposing every deal, but they failed to present the government with leverage against Hamas, making its life difficult in a way that would force Mashaal and his friends to release Shalit sooner and at a lower price. Anyone who saw the face of new Israel Security Agency head Yoram Cohen on Tuesday, after he had given in to the pressure and approved the deal, felt beset by a sense of weakness and failure.
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak must also be held accountable. In June 2006, then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he would not pay any price for the release of Shalit, who was kidnapped from inside Israeli territory. But in the midst of negotiations, he raised the number of Palestinian prisoners to the number that was agreed to on Tuesday. At least he can claim that at the last minute his hand trembled and he rejected the conditions he had helped shape.
What happened to Barak and Netanyahu, who stormed the wings of the hijacked Sabena plane in 1972 and prevailed over terrorists? Where is the famous resourcefulness of the two wonder kids from the Sayeret Matkal elite commando unit? This failure of the Israel Security Agency, Mossad and those appointed over them demands a serious investigation. We need to prepare for next time, which will arrive sooner or later, unfortunately. Just not today.
Right now we need to take a moment for a sigh of relief. For this child we have prayed. He has not been with us for more than five years, but during his absence he has come to be held, in love and pity, in every Israeli heart. Far away in body, but not in mind. The people of Israel love him and, in the words of the song, how good it is that we are like that.
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