For Gilad Shalit’s sake don’t trade for him

Once again our government is debating over whether to trade an insane number of prisoners in exchange for a captured soldier.  As always the arguments for either side are strong ones and as always there’s a lot of personal emotion involved.  And that’s just the problem – that it happens again and again.

If Israel had any reason to believe this time would be different it might be worth making the trade.  For example if they planned to make the trade and then afterwards systematically seal up Gaza hermetically, hunt down every person there known to be involved with terrorism and execute them, decimating the ranks of the terrorist organizations all at once to the extent that people would be afraid to have any link to them all would be well and good.  If Israel had reason to believe that the people they were releasing wouldn’t add to the 177 people who have been killed already this decade by terrorists released from Israeli jails in similar prisoner exchanges fine.  But there’s no reason to believe either of these scenarios will happen.  All that will happen is that the terrorists will be rewarded for their behavior with positive reinforcement and even a lab rat knows how to respond to that kind of lesson.  If Israel is not going to change its behavior drastically to the extent of all out war following Shalit’s safe release then just don’t bother.

No doubt many will accuse me of being callous: “how can you leave Gilad with those people?” they’ll ask.  Well what makes them think he’ll be any better off in Israel after such an exchange?  He’ll have to live here with the feeling that every person killed by any of the hundreds (if not thousands) of released murderers is on his head (even if it’s not his responsibility he’ll still feel it much as any of us would be haunted by hitting someone with our car when they jumped in front of it suddenly to commit suicide – we may not be culpable but we still feel guilt).  He has to live knowing that other Israelis, including himself (again) and his family are fair game for any terrorist wanting to secure the release of murderers.  That is assuming his psyche hasn’t been irrevocably damaged already beyond the point of living a normal life after being held for this long by the Palestinians

Of course this is all an assumption – I assume he’s alive.  Considering the last set of prisoners we released in return for soldiers this could well be an unwarranted assumption.  In exchange for hundreds of killers (who have to this point been responsible for the deaths of 35 other Israelis since the swap) the Hizbullah gave us 3 soldiers bodies and a drug dealing ex-army officer alive (and he was probably left alive only to make Israel feel foolish for trading for him).  Do we know Shalit is alive?  No international body has been allowed access to him nor is there even any videoed evidence of him.  We’re assured by the Palestinian Authority that he’s being treated with Muslim hospitality but they have no authority over the thugs holding Shalit. and no reason to believe he’s alive.

Releasing Shalit would be a fatal error on Israel’s part.  Our image as a regional power already suffered enough damage as a result of the recent war in Lebanon.  Our only choice now is to tough it out.  The recent Passover holiday is a good example of how to handle things.  Like Moshe and Aharon we need to deliver an ultimatum and stick to it.  The Palestinians have 24 hours to deliver Shalit or the plagues begin.  Perhaps we can’t turn their water to blood but we can stop their utilities.  We can stop food from going in through the checkpoints.  We can seal off the borders and cut off their money and job supply and let them wallow in their own filth.  If they feel a need to blow up we can leave them to blow up inside Gaza.  If they want to attack us we leave them to have to do it face on against our army in a conventional battle where we’re the ones at an advantage.  In short we negotiate from a position of strength and make them suffer for having done the kidnapping rather than from a position of weakness where we’re begging them to give us our soldier and handing them live weapons back on a silver platter.

The world?  They’ll yell and they’ll criticize but as long as our soldier’s being held in violation of a UN resolution and the Palestinians refuse to release him they’re going to have a hard time working up any major resolutions against us.  The US will veto any attempts and try and talk us into an “evenhanded approach,” but as with everything else in this region a whole lot of talk will happen and that’s all – but at least the Palestinians will know we mean business and not assume they can just walk over us – which is what a prisoner exchange would signify.