Bringing our sons home is a supreme value

Captured soldiers are brought home, whether they are alive or dead.

That is what we were taught, and that is what we teach our soldiers. In our many hundreds of hours in enemy territory, it was always clear to my colleagues, soldiers and commanders, and to me, that if the worst happened -- and we were very close to it happening more than once -- the state of Israel would bring us home, come what may.

Neither red lines which cannot be crossed nor other limitations will prevent us from bringing our sons home. For those rare cases in which we could not uphold our end of the implicit, yet binding, contract with our soldiers, we suffer every day (Ron Arad and others). In many other cases, we did uphold our end of the deal, and this is the source of national and personal pride.

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When setting out on operations to return prisoners or hostages, everyone is aware that, along with the chance of bringing them home alive, there is also a not-insignificant risk of failure. The price of failure is wounded on our side, and perhaps even the life of the hostage himself. The many operations that were carried out over the past several decades are padded with great successes (including the raid on Entebbe and others) as well as stinging failures (the 1974 Maalot massacre, the death of kidnapped soldier Nahshon Waxman and others).

In the absence of ideal operational conditions (mainly intelligence), the deal to free Shalit in exchange for the release of terrorists and other murderers is the only available option, excluding the option of not bringing soldiers home. While a superpower like the U.S. may chose this option, we cannot.

Gilad Shalit will be brought back in a deal at a heavy price -- letting terrorists and murderers who slaughtered the best of our citizens and combat soldiers go free. The “American option” is not an option for us. We must return Gilad Shalit not just for the sake of his family. His return sends a critical message to the thousands of soldiers risking their lives every day, some of them at levels of risk that the public is not even aware of.

To those who made the decision to bring Gilad Shalit back -- well done.

The writer is a Kadima MK and the former head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet).

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