Gilad Shalit
Photo: AP
We can’t have another Arad
Despite the painful price, we must free terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit
Thoughts of Gilad Shalit
immediately bring to mind Ron Arad,
as if the two were intertwined. Two soldiers who were taken captive during their military service; one disappeared and nobody knows what happened to him to this day, while the other has been held by his captors in Gaza for two years now, living and breathing. For the time being.
For two years now they have been debating the proper, worthwhile price we should be paying for the living soldier, as if we are talking about a real estate deal.
Gilad’s parents are frightened by the possibility that their son may end up like the missing navigator; meanwhile, the parents of new recruits to the IDF are haunted by such nightmare scenario happening to their sons. Yet it seems as though our policymakers have learned nothing.
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It is no doubt difficult o release hundreds of despicable terrorists who were driven to cold-blooded murder of innocents by monstrous hatred. It isn’t easy to free them from prison with the thought that they will spend the rest of their lives like normal people. It isn’t easy, yet it is necessary. In order to secure the release of a living soldier there is no other way but to free living terrorists.
The price is painful, bothersome, and even outrageous, yet nobody has the right to prevent Gilad Shalit’s release because of it.
We can and should bargain over the names on the Hamas list. We should not agree to free murderers with tons of blood on their hands, yet we cannot bring the negotiations to a halt. After all, if we do not release the living terrorists today in exchange for a living Gilad Shalit, tomorrow we’ll have to pay the same price for his body.
Today we know where Gilad Shalit is, but who can promise us this will be the case tomorrow as well?
Painful warning sign
The Ron Arad case shows us the future that Gilad Shalit can expect. Will we again hear the tired clichés about misjudging and erring? Will anyone pay the price for that? Will prime ministers and defense ministers be able to send soldiers to the next wars and promise them and their parents that everything shall be done in order to bring them back home safe and sound? Will we believe these mantras? Will the IDF value used to educate generations of soldiers that wounded soldiers are not abandoned not lose its meaning?
Ron Arad’s sad eyes, looking at us from the photograph handed over to Israel recently, should be etched in the hearts of Israeli decision-makers. They are a painful warning sign. They show us a terrible missed opportunity that must not be repeated.
The question of the number of prisoners Israel is willing to free in exchange for Gilad Shalit should be placed vis-à-vis the question of how we can keep looking in the eyes of Aviva and Noam Shalit 22 years from now, when we hear them utter the same sentence Tami Arad uttered this past week: “We have to keep looking for Ron. I am still seeking an answer regarding his fate.”
Today, we can still do something about it, even if it is terribly painful. Tomorrow, we may only be able to mourn the loss.
