Not A Good Idea

Submitted by Blackspeare (United States), Jul 2, 2006 at 15:05

Israel, which throughout its existence has lost thousands of soldiers in wars and mass terror attacks, has lost its hold on itself in the face of the abduction of a number of soldiers or civilians. The exalted heritage of not abandoning the wounded on the battlefield makes Israel crazy. Two individuals killed in an Israel Defense Forces screw-up in the area of Kerem Shalom have been almost entirely blotted from the public mind in light of the abduction of Gilad Shalit and the discovery on Wednesday of the body of Eliyahu Asheri. Whoever ordered the abduction of the soldier and the civilian knew very well that is Israel's Achilles heel.

Israel released hundreds of prisoners in return for captured solduers, and it has released security prisoners even in exchange for the bodies of IDF dead.

In the main, the fortitude of the Israeli public is pretty high. It has proved itself during years of wars and mass terror attacks; and after the initial shock, life has gone on. We have had incidents of hijackings - Air France in Entebbe and Sabena that landed in Lod, in both of which the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit captured and killed the hijackers and freed the passengers. Moshe Dayan, as chief of staff and as defense minister, held that Israel, like the United States today, does not negotiate with abductors. In its day, this principle led to the massacre at the school in Ma'alot. The entire country wept, but with time, it regretted having adhered to this principle.

A state that protects its abducted civilians and soldiers, and is prepared to pay a great deal for information regarding their fate, evinces nobility, but also weakness. What is transpiring after Shalit was abducted borders on hysterical lunacy. How could it have happened in light of the specific warnings about kidnappings? And were there really warnings? And how come they didn't know about the tunnel? And so forth. The question is: Where were all the experts before it happened? Why didn't they sound a warning?

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".