Yael Mishali
Photo: Flash 90
Why aren’t we ashamed?
We should be ashamed to see Gilad Shalit’s parents begging us
Malevolence. This is what stands behind the insolence of the loud objectors to the Shalit deal. Malevolence and indifference. I’m sure that up until recently, Noam and Aviva Shalit did not imagine that most of their struggle will have to be directed against the people whose son protected with his body.
I’m well familiar with the pseudo-rational and even more pseudo-halachaic arguments in respect to not redeeming captives for more than their value, and with all the arguments of bereaved families who will be happy to add the Shalit family into their ranks as long as they don’t see the murderers of their loved ones released. I’m also familiar with all the calculations regarding the terrorists who went back to killing immediately after being released in the deal for what’s his name…how many of them went back to terror and how many victims this caused.
It’s certainly an interesting theoretical discussion, and possibly an important one too, but now? Doing this in the face of his parents, exhausted by the cruel struggle we force upon them every day? They need to face us and beg for their son? How can we not feel ashamed?
In fact, I am ashamed. I am ashamed of rightist rabbis; it’s hard to count the number of victims we paid and will pay for the sake of their settlement vision. I’m ashamed of rightist supporters and religious politicians whose political agenda prompts us to place IDF troops and all citizens of this country in daily danger of terror attacks and wars. I’m ashamed of Gaza-region residents who are not fighting for the return of Gilad Shalit, who fell in captivity while directly protecting them. I’m ashamed of the youngsters who join the army every day and of their parents for not conditioning their enlistment on the state’s irrevocable obligation to bring them back at any price, if heaven forbid they will ever be in Gilad’s place.
I’m also ashamed of myself for not writing even one word on the subject until now, only because I failed to understand that the main struggle is a domestic one, vis-à-vis Israeli mothers and fathers whose sons are soldiers too, yet do not feel for the sons of others.
More than just math
Yes, I know that I’m making “emotional” arguments, which count less than your math and your “intellectual” arguments. Yet the truth is that if we keep going with your intellectual argumentation, the simple math of how much blood we’ll be paying for in return for Gilad’s freedom, we can easily reach the conclusion that the entire existence of the State of Israel is not worth the number of victims.
After all, the most dangerous place for Jews in the world today is Israel…isn’t it so? And within Israel…Tel Aviv? Sderot? Kiryat Shmona? The settlements? Could it be that all this effort to defend the State of Israel and parts of it that are facing domestic controversy is not worth the price?
My heart goes out to Noam and Aviva Shalit. All the other arguments don’t really touch me. I want their son to return home. The idiotic and false term “at any price” was invented by bad people. Nobody is talking about “any price.” Nobody offers to replace Gilad with the son of one of the objectors to the deal or with the prime minister’s son, and nobody offers to shut down Rabbi Zalman Melamed’s yeshiva or the entire community of Beit-El for Shalit (yet the idea is worth consideration, isn’t it?)
All the “prices” currently on the table are completely worthy; they are wholly reasonable prices. The voice of our brother’s blood is crying unto us, and not from the ground. Let’s bring him back already!
