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Aviva and Noam Shalit, Gilad's parents, with NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg (2009)

As everyone knows by now, Israel signed a deal with Hamas, and the Cabinet signed on, to trade 1000 prisoners in Israeli jails for Gilad Shalit.

All the details, particularly whether some of the worst terrorists are on the list, are not clear. There are conflicting reports about whether Marwan Barghouti (5 life sentences) or his cousin, Hamas bomb-maker Abdallah Barghouti (67 life sentences) are included. There are also reports (and denials) that Shalit is now in Cairo.

At this point, all that can be reported for certain is that there is a deal for 1000 prisoners. Many of them are murderers.

As the father of three children who served in the IDF, I know what it is to worry about a soldier. I cannot know what the Shalit family has suffered. I’m sure my nightmares, vivid as they were, did not compare to their reality. I understand this. I know that if my son were in their Gilad’s place I would do absolutely anything, no matter how irrational, to bring him home. I admit it, even if I thought it would bring down the state, I would do it. That’s the way parents are.

But the Prime Minister of the State of Israel can’t act irrationally. He has the responsibility to protect all Israelis. Like a military commander who sometimes gives orders that he knows will result in the death of some of his soldiers, he must make choices — even when there is no acceptable choice.

But the choice the PM and his government have made is the wrong one. The deal will:

1. Encourage more kidnappings.
2. Eliminate fear of imprisonment as a deterrent to terrorism.
3. Give Hamas a huge political victory (they are already claiming it).
4. Boost Hamas morale and recruitment.
5. Wreck the morale of our security people, who risked their lives to capture these terrorists.
6. Free vicious terrorists who will kill again.*

Some say there is a Jewish moral imperative to rescue captives. But like most moral problems, this is one of conflicting imperatives. The deal is a trade: one young man’s life today for the lives of future terror victims — and we may not have to wait long for that future.

Others argue that terror organizations are always trying to kidnap soldiers (and other Israelis) and this won’t change. But it’s reasonable to think that the striking success of this kidnapping — one of the major Palestinian goals enunciated by Mahmoud Abbas in his recent speech to the UN was to free prisoners — will result in more resources being devoted to this tactic.

A prospective terrorist can contemplate murder, even multiple murders, knowing that if he escapes from the scene of the crime, he can expect at most a few years imprisonment (under relatively good conditions), until the next ‘swap’. Then he will be a hero of the Palestinian people.

I spoke to a person who was a member of the security forces that stopped hundreds of potential terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada, intercepting terrorists on their way to their targets. He personally arrested some of those who may be freed, including one of those responsible for the Hebrew University bombing. He said “you work for years to accomplish something, and then it all disappears.”

Ahlam Tamimi, the woman who drove the Sbarro restaurant bomber to his target, is one who will be released (all women prisoners are included). She received 16 life sentences. She said “I’m not sorry for what I did. I will get out of prison and I refuse to recognize Israel’s existence.” Another female prisoner is Amna Muna, who lured an Israeli teenager to his death by computer chat. She isn’t sorry either.

Nevertheless, it is important that we keep our perspective about who is responsible for the enormous evil that has transpired here: the evils of past and future terrorism, and the evil done against Gilad Shalit, his family and all of Israel and the Jewish people. The Palestinian terror movements (not just Hamas) are responsible, and should be made to pay in the strongest possible way.

I’ve often called for a death penalty for terrorist murders. There is a downside: every execution will become an international crisis. But there may be no other way to deter it (not all terrorists are suicidal, after all, especially the ones who plan and order the attacks).

There has been criticism of the Shalit family for the pressure that led to this deal, even talk of demonstrating outside of their home when the inevitable consequences of it come to pass. The criticism is misdirected and the idea of demonstrating reprehensible. They have suffered far more than enough.

I have had a banner hanging above my front door for some time with a picture of Gilad Shalit, calling for his freedom. We also have placed his picture at our Passover seder table for several years. We will remove the banner with great happiness, along with trepidation.

Update [0945 PDT]: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Strategic Affairs Minister and former IDF chief Moshe Ya’alon, and National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau are the only cabinet members who voted against the deal. Pick the next Prime Minister from that list.

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* I posted this list of reasons on an email list, and I see that some other bloggers have used it. That’s fine, but I want to make clear that I didn’t copy it from anyone.

Technorati Tags: Gilad Shalit, Israel, Hamas, terrorism

News item:

The US is the number one enemy of the Palestinians because it supports Israeli “oppression” against the Palestinians, Tawfik Tirawi, a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee, said on Sunday.

Tirawi, former commander of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Force in the West Bank, also said that Fatah has not abandoned the armed struggle option against Israel. “Fatah hasn’t thrown the rifle aside,” Tirawi told thousands of university students during a rally in Hebron.

Tirawi’s anti-US remarks came only days after a Palestinian protester tossed a shoe at US diplomats who arrived in Ramallah to attend a cultural event. The Palestinians were protesting against US President Barack Obama’s refusal to back the PA’s statehood bid at the UN and US threats to cut off financial aid to the PA.

I have certainly not held back from criticizing the Obama Administration, which I think has significantly shifted the US position away from Israel’s and closer to the Palestinians’. But this is not good enough for the Palestinians, who feel betrayed because the US did not facilitate their strategy of gaining territory and statehood without negotiating with Israel.

The US Congress has held up the transfer of $200 million to the Palestinian Authority (PA) because their action violates previous agreements, because of their cooperation with Hamas, and because they refuse to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people (the administration is doing its best to pressure Congress to release the money before the pipeline dries up).

Some other reasons that our representatives may or may not have taken into account include the fact that the PA pays a monthly ‘salary’ to 5000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, even those who have been convicted of murder. This includes members of Hamas, as well as Fatah! They also pay their ’employees’ in the Gaza Strip — in particular, ‘security’ personnel. Since Gaza is entirely controlled by Hamas, either these employees are doing nothing or they are working for Hamas.

In addition, there is a huge amount of corruption in the PA, with cronies of powerful politicians reaping benefits from PA-sponsored monopolies, etc.  And if Fatah decides to ‘pick up the rifle again’, no doubt international aid will pay for it.

Now the EU has decided to allocate another 100 million Euros (about $133 million).

It seems to me that the greatest obstacle to peace between the Arabs and Israel is not Israeli settlements. It is not even Arab rejectionism — although perhaps that is the proximate cause.

No, the biggest obstacle is Western meddling, which has enabled a corrupt terrorist organization like the PLO to obtain and cling to power, and which has encouraged them to think that it will help them kick the Jews out of the Middle East.

The West has also prevented Israel from dealing with Hamas, a group which deserves no more or less than to be wiped off the face of the earth. Yet Israel has had to walk a tightrope between doing nothing and engaging in highly limited military operations, always prepared for accusations of war crimes coming from European-funded NGOs. Even an economic strategy to bring down Hamas was short-circuited by the US after the Mavi Marmara affair.

Under UN protection, Hizballah has rebuilt itself to an even better strategic position than prior to 2006. And whether or not you think Israel has the ability to knock out the Iranian nuclear program, there is no doubt that pressure from the US is one of the greatest obstacles that would have to be overcome to do so.

Here is my two-step plan to solve the Israeli-Arab conflict:

1. Stop funding, supporting, catering to, protecting, coddling, and pretending to not understand the real intentions of the PLO, Hamas, Hizballah, etc. Stop funding anti-Israel NGOs, too.
2. Understand that Israel’s self-defense and Western interests are aligned, and allow Israel to do what it needs to do without interference.

This plan is both inexpensive — it saves hundreds of millions of dollars — and would result in both a secure Israel and a possibility that the Palestinian Arabs can develop leadership that is more interested in improving the lives of Arabs than in killing Jews.

The longer we wait, the more it will cost — in money and lives.

Technorati Tags: Palestinian Authority, Israel

The NIF-sponsored declaration about the Tuba Zanghariya incident, signed by 1000 rabbis, makes it clear that they oppose bad behavior by Israelis:

We condemn those in Israel who exacerbate conflict and strife, and who insist that only one people or religion belongs to this land. (my emphasis)

But why do you think those two boldfaced words are there?

Perhaps the NIF didn’t want to contradict the official Palestinian Authority (PA) TV station which, shortly after Mahmoud Abbas’ appeal to the UN for statehood, broadcast this map, showing all of the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean (except the Golan Heights) wrapped in a Palestinian flag (the key symbolizes Palestinian Arab ownership of the land they were ‘expelled’ from in 1948).

Statements like this one are crafted very carefully. I do not believe that those two words are there by accident. They are there to tell us that the statement does not condemn those outside of Israel — which includes all of the Palestinian leadership, the PLO and Hamas — who think that only the Arabs “belong to the land” (a strange locution in itself).

This isn’t surprising in light of the Wikileaks cable which quotes an NIF official as saying that “the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic.”

I wonder if any of the liberal American rabbis (some of whom I know) who signed the statement noticed this?

Technorati Tags: NIF, Israel, Palestinian Authority

The words "price tag" written in charcoal on the vandalized mosque in Tuba Zanghariya

Israeli police have arrested a yeshiva student for setting fire to a mosque in the Israeli Arab (Bedouin) village of Tuba Zanghariya. This was one of a group of “price tag” revenge attacks carried out by… idiots.

When I first heard about it I hoped that it was a false flag operation carried out by Arabs as a provocation. I am still hoping that the police are wrong (it wouldn’t be the first time).

The attack was condemned by Jewish political and religious figures of every stripe, including the Chief Rabbis of Israel. The head Sepharadi rabbi, Rabbi Shlomo Amar said,

We must cry out against this deed, it is a hilul Hashem [desecration of God’s name]. All leaders should speak against this act of terror and hate…

We remember as Jews when other people burned our synagogues and burned our Torah scrolls. We cannot accept such acts against other religions … A church, mosque, temple or synagogue are embassies of God and you cannot harm such places. We strongly protest such actions.

In addition to the fact that the act was morally wrong, it was unbelievably stupid. There is still a gag order on details of the case, but I’m sure that when we find them out, we will see that the perpetrator is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

The “price tag” attacks are supposed to deter Arabs from vandalism, terrorism and even murder by making them pay a ‘price’. This can’t possibly work, since it simply motivates the Arabs to respond in kind, something they are overjoyed to have an excuse to do.

So the strategy is both wrong and ineffective.

But there’s more:  it’s a huge gift to our enemies in the information war. It provides the grain of truth needed to validate the exaggerations and outright lies that will be told in order to establish that ‘both sides’ are at fault, even that ‘both sides engage in terrorism’.

This particular one is even worse. Tuba Zanghariya is (or was) a relatively friendly village. Its people fought on the Jewish side in the War of Independence, and many serve in the IDF today. There is even a monument to 13 of their sons who fell in Israel’s wars. This is simply the most inappropriate possible place to retaliate for Arab terrorism.

Naturally the Israeli Left is having a field day denouncing the ‘religious fanatics’ or ‘extremist settlers’ that did this. The anti-Zionist US-based New Israel Fund (NIF) is making sure that no one will ever forget this outrage, even when the murder of Asher Palmer and his tiny baby (supposedly the motivation for the mosque attack) is long forgotten:

Washington, DC/Jerusalem, October 6: In only 24 hours, almost 1000 rabbis from around the world have signed a statement condemning the burning of the mosque in Tuba-Zangariya earlier this week. The statement was initiated by the New Israel Fund and was presented today to the Imam of the village of Tuba-Zangariya by dozens of rabbis and other activists participating in a solidarity convoy to the village…

The Brit Choshech Legaresh (“Banish the Darkness”) coalition, which is financially supported by NIF, led the convoy to Tuba-Zangariya. The coalition was established after the publication of the controversial and inciting book Torat Hamelech (“The King’s Torah”) in September 2009, mobilizing a forceful public response to the book, which argues that Jewish law permits and even encourages the murder of Gentiles. The members of the coalition are religious and secular organizations fighting to garner public opposition to religious racism as a desecration of God’s name and a distortion of Judaism. In addition, Brit Choshech Legaresh struggles daily against all incidents of racism in Israel. — NIF press release

There are already pledges of donations to rebuild the mosque several times over. The police have acted quickly, and in fact recently created a special unit to arrest those involved in “price tag” vandalism. Some perspective is needed — this is teenage stupidity, after all, not a major terrorist movement.

The NIF found many words to condemn the truly despicable burning of a mosque. But a mosque is a building that will be rebuilt. Asher Palmer and his son will never come back, and the NIF did not issue a press release or mobilize 1000 rabbis when they were viciously murdered.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Tuba Zangharaya, Mosque burning, Asher Palmer, Jonathan Palmer, terrorism, NIF

A cornered beast speaks:

“If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than 6 hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv,” [Syrian President Bashar] Assad said after [Turkish FM] Davutoglu conveyed the United States’ warning message to him.

He also reiterated that Damascus will also call on Hezbollah in Lebanon to launch such an intensive rocket and missile attack on Israel that the Israeli spy agencies could never imagine.

“All these events will happen in three hours, but in the second three hours, Iran will attack the US warships in the Persian Gulf and the US and European interests will be targeted simultaneously,” Assad said. — FARS News Service, Iran

Israel is reported to have warned Assad earlier this year that if he attacked Israel, it would respond by personally targeting him. This is an appropriate response to a gangster. Israel certainly has no interest in killing (other) Syrians, who are not responsible for wild beast Assad’s actions.

I mention this threat to make a point that I’ve made before, but that bears repeating by everyone who tries to explain the Israeli-Arab conflict:

It is not primarily about the Palestinian Arabs, although they often represent the violent interface of it. The overall problem facing Israel is that the Arab world, plus Iran and now Turkey, wants to destroy Israel. One of their greatest weapons, in the war on the ground, in the information war and in the diplomatic war — all three are being waged simultaneously — is the Palestinian Arabs. But it isn’t about them, any more than what used to be called ‘the war on terrorism’ was about terrorism.

Most of the anti-Israel propaganda we see is devoted to obscuring this fact. It deals with Palestinian rights, ‘occupation’, incidents involving Palestinians, settlements, etc. It never mentions the Iranian nuclear threat, Hizballah’s 40,000 rockets, Hamas’ constantly improving military capabilities, Syrian chemical weapons, the possibility that Egypt will become a confrontation state again, the new-found belligerence of Turkey, etc.

Whenever Arab or Iranian hostility to Israel is mentioned, it is said to be a consequence of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. But we can see that this can’t be the case, both from the fact that the Arab countries treat Palestinians worse than Israel and because of the antisemitic and religious nature of the hatred for Israel that is commonly expressed by officials of the Arab and Iranian regimes, their media and their religious leaders.

The conflict is mis-described in so many ways. Even the Palestinian part of it is often explained as soluble by a territorial compromise leading to a ‘two-state solution’. Of course we know that for the Palestinians, this ‘solution’ includes a ‘right of return’ and no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, which transforms the territorial conflict into an existential one.

The overall situation in the Middle East is quite complicated, with Sunni-Shiite tension, the competing ambitions of Iran, Turkey and Egypt for leadership of the region, the struggles between Islamists, nationalists and even a few democrats to dominate the states where long-time dictators are being deposed, the contest to control Mediterranean natural gas, the instability in Saudi Arabia, the coming food crisis, etc. The situation changes as time passes — Iran was locked in war with Iraq for more than a decade, which kept it from expressing its greater regional ambitions, for example — but superimposed on all of it has always been the imperative to reject and destroy Israel.

These conflicts are independent, in a way. If Israel disappeared the rest of it would continue, and if all the Arabs, Turkey and Iran found a way to make a comprehensive peace between themselves, they would still want to destroy Israel.

Just keep repeating this: it’s not about Palestine, it’s about Israel.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Israeli-Arab conflict, Middle East, Bashar al-Assad