We passed the test of compassion
The nation waited for a son who was taken against his will. At the time of his abduction, Shalit was a humble, anonymous figure, but upon his impending return home, he will be a well-known figure who will be thrust into the spotlight, also against his will. During the period of his captivity, a debate over values took place. It was an argument for the sake of heaven, between some with a clear conscience and others with a clear conscience.
Both sides will approach the argument with heavyweight explanations and supporting remarks to strengthen their cases. In the 1,934 days that have passed since two were killed and one was injured in that incident, a turbulent debate persisted over the rescue of the abducted soldier, and the participants in the debate were fully aware of all the arguments. Each was aware of the commandment to redeem a captive, but also of the halacha (Jewish religious law) prohibiting the redemption of a captive for more than he/she is worth. Just as we are all able to quote: "All Jews are responsible for one another."
Jewish history is drenched in blood. It is filled with difficult stories of abductions and community struggles to release incarcerated Jews, and also lessons learned from prominent individuals, who in particular cases did not allow captives to be redeemed, to avoid horrific treatment of future Jewish captives.
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There is no right or wrong in this argument. If the captive was murdered in captivity with his hands tied behind his back, the debate would tilt to one side. "We told you so. We warned you." Now that such a heavy price of freeing hideous murderers was paid, which will inevitably humiliate Israel in front of the cameras, it is not clear to which side the debate will tilt. It depends on what the lens will capture.
Save the victim today, or those who will be murdered tomorrow by the deadly prisoners who will be released from prison? Should we prefer the blood of one over the blood of others? Whose blood is thicker? Someone once approached Rava [Torah sage in the Talmudic era] and told him that the regime was demanding him to murder his enemy. If he doesn't do so, the man said, they will kill him. What should he do? Rava replied, "Be killed, and don't kill. Do you think your blood is redder than his-"
But, on the other hand, the heavenly servants once approached the Almighty and asked why he raised the waters of a well so that Ishmael could make use of them, knowing that Ishmael would murder Jews in the future. The Almighty asked them, "Is Ishmael an evil person or a righteous person at the moment-" They responded, "He is righteous." "Aha," the Almighty said, "I judge the individual based on his current status." This argument is yet to be concluded. Perhaps it will not end until there is peace in this land.
After the ruckus ended, there is still no real peaceful silence. There are still rivers flowing with blood, fire, brimstone, tears, desperation, depression and forlorn hopes. And when the news arrives, many good people still want to fathom the minutest detail. There is something "yellow" in that. It is surely a sort of "peeping tom," but something we apparently can't do without. We are curious to know what happened to introverted Shalit, who was forced on a dark night into a pit in Gaza, and who is returning after five and a half years to the sounds of drums and celebrations, straight to center stage, a national asset.
Gilad Shalit was the nation's boy. We were all concerned for his fate. We dreamed about him. We imagined horrific scenarios, but also sweet illusions in which an angelic figure from heaven descends to earth and carries him to a safe haven. There were memories of the Sabena plane incident, and of Entebbe. There were also some worries, based on the cases of Nachshon Waxman and Ron Arad.
The atmosphere was charged, and all the tension will be released the moment he lands in Israel, crossing over after 1,934 days. Where have they been holding him? Did he have access to sunlight? How much? How did he deal with his isolation? To what degree was he isolated? Does he suffer from emotional deficiency? Who will we find to talk to him, to ask him about his ordeal - a close friend. Should he be asked about his ordeal in Hebrew or in Arabic? What did he eat and what did he drink? Did they provide books for him to read? Did he manage to write a diary? Was it taken from him? Did a "nice" guard or a "bad" guard watch over him? Was he beaten during Operation Cast Lead? Did they try to convince him of the "righteous" cause of the Palestinian terrorists-
Does he feel that he could have been rescued if only his would-be rescuers knew some of the things he may have overheard or saw during his captivity? Did he surrender to the desperation of feeling abandoned? Perhaps we forgot about him? Not his parents, not his family, but others-
How did Gilad deal with his desperation? Were there moments he felt like giving up hope and ending his life? In his solitude, were there moments he was uplifted and strengthened? Did he make vows? If so, how will they affect him in the future? What did he feel toward his captors-
Did he find some merit in them, as sometimes happens with captives? Will he ever agree to return to Gaza? What will he feel toward his parents and the public when he is told how much they toiled and left no stone unturned for his release? Who did he miss most, and who did he forget? What does he consider his home now? His parent's home in Mitzpe Hila?
Only Gilad knows what his parents meant to him in his everyday life. He has now acquired other parents as well - noble Jews who do excellent work when it comes to struggles of this sort; people who are clean of acts of violence and do not have tainted tongues, even in the darkest moments of their lives.
Shalit's acquaintances have a good idea who that person is, the person who was forced into this dark journey. No one knows, though, who this person who will return to us is now. An entire nation will want to know, and the decision whether or not to let them know about his journey, and if he will be moving on with the help of a teacher, a guide, a psychologist, will be in his hands only. Publishers will wait for him at Ben-Gurion International Airport, checkbooks open. That's how the last chapter ends in every turbulent incident.
The Israeli intelligence could not muster the necessary powers to crack the case and locate his whereabouts despite the fact that the Gaza strip is a well-defined area that one cannot easily leave. The great Israel Defense Forces and the mighty Israeli Mossad and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) while highly praised were caught flatfooted.
Former Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin and retired Mossad director Meir Dagan must provide an explanation to themselves as to why this was allowed to drag on for so long. Former military Intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, must too. How could all these bodies log such an impressive track record on much more complex conundrums? But now they were off their game and were unable to figure out a plan to rescue Shalit. They just shot in all directions. To paraphrase the poet Natan Alterman, they were awe struck by being left in the pitch black darkness of the night in their pursuit of Shalit.
We have all imagined Gilad tied up and surrounded by landmines well below ground level, and we might have conceivably found a way there. But we did not pursue his release aggressively enough, through every possible means, such as by targeting Hamas leadership or disrupting its way of life or restricting its freedom of movement and we have even failed to deny the murderers and terrorists in Israeli prisons all the special privileges they had obtained such as the right to pursue academic degrees or the easy welfare and lax restrictions on visits by family members.
Aviva and Noam Shalit begged that something be done. Only at the end of the campaign for his release did activists physically try to prevent families of terrorists from arriving at prisons for visits. Even this effort -- blocking buses as they approach the prisons -- only went so far.
Two Israeli governments have been embroiled in this affair. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who initially declared that he would not release prisoners in exchange for Shalit, reversed course and set the price for his release at the current figure of more than 1,000 prisoners. He eventually got cold feet, though, and refused to seal the deal, preferring instead to pass the conundrum on to his successor. He had already failed the test of negotiation when he agreed to the terms of the release of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, whose abduction triggered the ill-fated Second Lebanon War. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not get a better deal than Olmert. He did not exact a price for the incessant terrorism, but he dared to sign the deal that would have 1,027 prisoners released and bring an end to this nightmare.
The deal continues Israel's decline when it comes to hostage-taking. In 1970, when night watchman Shmuel Rosenwasser was abducted by Lebanese terrorists near the Lebanon-Israel border, Israel released one prisoner for him. For Avraham Moshe, Israel released 76 prisoners, including 33 who had been sentenced to life in prison. Prime Ministers Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Olmert and Benjamin Netanyahu all failed to pull the brakes on this decline. Each deal was worse than the one that came before it. By including Arab-Israelis among the prisoners to be released, Israel has now handed a Hamas a prized diplomatic victory, making it seem like Hamas leadership is the representative of these Israeli citizens, and they Hamas' proxy.
Now that Hamas represents the Arabs in Israel, how can Israel lay criticism on MK Ahmad Tibi's anti-Israel remarks? He is merely an advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin refused to pay the small price that had been requested by the captors of Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad in 1986. The public never forgave him for this genuine effort to stop the erosion in Israel's standing, although this effort ultimately failed miserably, with Ron Arad's whereabouts still unknown. He presided over a failed rescue operation to release abducted soldier Nachshon Waxman in 1994, together with then IDF Chief of General Staff Ehud Barak. My personal opinion, without having been privy to the information available at the time, is that Rabin acted correctly. The decision was meant to avert a march toward more kidnappings. Perhaps Barak is traumatized by that deadly episode, which resulted in the death of one of the rescuers, First Class Officer Nir Poraz from the elite special forces unit Sayeret Matkal along with Waxman himself. Perhaps this explains why he has supported Netanyahu all along in the Shalit affair.
The issue at hand is complex. How is it that immediately after an Israeli is kidnapped the terrorists manage to locate Israel's Achilles' heel when it comes to its national stamina by placing their initial demands, which ultimately are met? Do they know something about us that we don't? Is there something that we have failed to understand about them-
Justice Meir Shamgar, former Supreme Court president, was tasked with drafting guidelines for how the government should act in future kidnapping scenarios. The government, which appointed his commission, will from now on be advised to follow a specific template for negotiating the release of hostages. The government decided to keep this template under wraps until Shalit returns home. But now that is about to change and the public will be able to add its input.
This is the way it should be done. The nation must take an active part in any form of deliberation that could tie its hands in the future, and this discussion should take place with no Israelis in captivity. But the fact that the government adopts certain recommendations is not enough. These guidelines need to be bolstered, perhaps by writing them into law, like all bills that get voted on three times on the Knesset floor. This could also have the affect of a Casus Belli. Namely, this entails a commitment that one party undertakes so that it does not go down a path it seeks to avoid.
Such a move would serve to strengthen the prime minister in the event that another Israeli is kidnapped and it might also lower terrorists' expectations. Perhaps it may spare us this ordeal; this torments us, the Jewish people, precisely because this is what is so noble about us.
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