Like many of the millions of people who kept vigil, I am glad
that Gilad Shalit is home after being held hostage by Hamas for
nearly six years. As the father of a son who serves in the Israel
Defense Forces, I am especially happy for and grateful to Gilad’s
parents. They created an international vigil for their son from the
day he was abducted. Even when his homecoming seemed as distant to
them as Joseph’s did to his father Jacob, they turned hope into
action and held politicians to their word. And now, on the eve of
Simchat Torah, the holiday celebrating the conclusion of the
reading of the Torah, Gilad is reunited with his family and his
people.
To be sure, there is near universal debate and doubt about
the merit of releasing a thousand Palestinian prisoners, some of
whom committed the worst terrorist acts in Israel’s history. My son
had reservations too. But (as I quickly pointed out to him!)
prisoner exchanges are part of the diplomatic currency in the
Middle East and Israel has made them in the past to get soldiers
and spies home whether they were alive or dead. Many rightly viewed
the deal as keeping faith with Israel’s pledge to never leave a
soldier behind. As veteran intelligence reporter Hirsch Goodman
wrote: “If Shalit had been abandoned, more than a human life
would have been thrown away. Israel’s morality would have gone with
it, as would the core of the military code that makes the Israel
Defense Forces the fighting force it is.”
Moreover, such deals are part of a broader policy of
rescuing or defending Jews through military action when it is
possible, though risky, because it would not only endanger Israeli
lives but also possibly “trigger” reprisals. It has included the
Entebbe Raid, the bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981,
the attack on Syria’s nuclear facility in 2007, and the Mossad’s
2008 assassination of Imad Mugniyeh, a top Hezbollah leader
and mastermind of the 1994 Argentinean Jewish Center bombing that
killed 85 people.
In this regard, while Gilad’s return was not a foregone
conclusion, Israel’s “friends” and the international community made
both his rescue and homecoming more difficult and unlikely than it
should have been. Gilad’s captivity was long and brutal thanks to
the willingness of the media and of other nations to treat Hamas as
the victims and Israel as an occupying nation guilty of war crimes.
The price for his return only went up after the Obama
administration
pressured Israel to drop demands for Shalit’s release in
exchange for the reopening of border crossings in Gaza.
Meanwhile, leftist American Jews like
Peter Beinart and
J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami were both late and largely
indifferent to Gilad’s plight.
Gilad’s ordeal was perpetuated by the refusal of Israel’s
“friends” to acknowledge that in returning land it won in battle
and releasing prisoners who did it harm, Israel has sought to
balance the need for security, the sanctity of life, and the desire
for peace. Such isolation is the result of Israel being surrounded
by those who regard the Iranian-backed terrorists who kidnapped
Shalit as victims deserving a state of their own.
It is offset by this consolation: Many Americans and
Christians who have stood by the Jewish state gathered yesterday in
Jerusalem with Jews and Muslims to celebrate Gilad’s parents and
welcome Shalit home. They know that his homecoming is yet another
z’man simchatainu — season of rejoicing — in an enduring
promise to a people and the world.
