Don’t cling to illusions

Deliberations will make no difference; price of Shalit deal to be unbearable

Eitan Haber|Published: 12.22.09 , 10:57

At the end of the day, after all the hesitations (and mostly the reports about the hesitations,) the bargaining, and the difficult negotiations, the State of Israel will pay a heavy price, more or less, for the safe return of Gilad Shalit.

The debate we are seeing now is meant to allow cabinet ministers to boast later on that they brought down the price. The argument I am making here is that with all due respect to the ministers, there is almost no significant to their “decisive” and “fateful” decision.

In this difficult deal, one more freed murderer will make no difference for the grave implications we can expect the day after.

Moreover, there is not much significance to the support or objection of the various ministers. According to the current government style in Israel, the prime minister and nobody else makes the decision. An example from the relatively recent past: Ariel Sharon decided to proceed with the disengagement in complete contradiction to the views of his party leaders and members of its Central Committee. So what? The disengagement happened, didn’t it?

The problem is that for many years, the current prime minister endorsed a stubborn stance against terror organizations. However, what do you know, he now finds himself facing a grim reality, for the third time: The first was when he found himself talking about the two-state solution; the second time was when he spoke about the settlement construction freeze; now, he is facing this terrible deal.

Useless weapons

Benjamin Netanyahu must be dreaming at night about Arrow missiles that have no use in this war, just like the thousands of tanks and nuclear facilities we reportedly have. There is no use in all of these things in the war for the life of Gilad Shalit.

For dozens of years, we pushed ourselves into the current corner. All Israeli governments endorsed swaps of their murderers in exchange for our captives at exaggerated rates that were never symmetric. And now all of a sudden, we are trying to change the rules, yet it’s not working out so well.

We are facing a terribly cruel enemy; one that may, if it so wishes, hurt Shalit. “That’s impossible,” some will say. “We have a videotape. He’s alive, he’s alive he’s alive.” Well, that’s nonsense. The archive at the defense minister’s office holds old tapes of Ron Arad. Yes, he too used to be alive.

I wrote this piece before the end of Monday night’s cabinet meeting. The negotiations may go on. The ministers may try to elicit another achievement or postpone the decision. Yet there’s no point in clinging to illusions: The deal will get underway, and its price will be unbearable.