obituaries >> commentary

One Prisoner Swap Too Many

I

Avi Issacharoff
Times of Israel Mideast Analyst

S

ince Israel cut a deal with Hamas
in October 2011 to free the cap-
tive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, six
Israelis have been murdered in attacks
carried out or planned by prisoners who
were released in that agreement. And
unfortunately, victim No. 6, Malachy
Rosenfeld, slain three weeks ago, will
probably not be the last.
Almost weekly, Israeli and Palestinian
security forces arrest Hamas support-
ers in the West Bank who are trying to
carry out attacks against Israeli targets.
The common denominator for nearly all
of these attacks is a "guiding hand" that
comes out of the so-called "West Bank
bureau" of Hamas. This is a group of
released Shalit Deal prisoners, originally
from the West Bank, who were deported
to the Gaza Strip and who have resumed
their 24/7 attempts to carry out attacks in
the West Bank.
Another group involved in the same

activity consists of a number of Hamas
members who were deported to Turkey.
From there, and under the command of
Saleh al-Arouri (although he denies it),
they are working to infiltrate the West
Bank via Jordan and kill Israelis and
destabilize the Palestinian Authority.
The lesson is clear. First, deportation
as part of a deal to release fighters has
not been proven effective in preventing
terrorism. On the contrary. It has actually
undermined the ability of the General
Security Service and the IDF to reach the
terrorists.
Second, and this is the crux of the mat-
ter, these transactions sanctify the blood
of soldiers like Gilad Shalit, while reduc-
ing the value of other lives to zero.
No matter how many tragic reminders
Israel gets after negotiating the release
of IDF soldiers; no matter how high the
stack of Israeli bodies gets as a result of
such transactions, there's still a deeply
embedded Israeli reflex that sends deci-
sion-makers back each time to the idea
of a wholesale release of terrorists for a

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Obituaries

soldier or two.
The Shalit Deal set a new record by far
for Israel's willingness to make conces-
sions and reach an agreement, one that
was signed by none other than Benjamin
Netanyahu. Of all people, it was actually
Bibi — a man who can write books about
the war on terror, who plays aggressive
hardball when it comes to Iran — who
signed one of the worst deals for Israel.
Some 1,027 male and female prison-
ers were released in exchange for Gilad
Shalit.
The question may sound like a worn
cliche, but it must be asked: Was Gilad
Shalit's blood redder than the blood of
the six people subsequently murdered as
the result of the deal for his release? Is it
redder than the blood of the additional
victims who will inevitably and tragically
be murdered? Shouldn't Netanyahu have
taken a far tougher stance with Hamas
in order to get them to climb down from
their demand for a thousand prisoners?
Perhaps even more ridiculous is the
fact that the Israeli public accepted the

Shalit deal with near total understand-
ing. This, in contrast with its hostile
reaction to the release in stages of 104
longtime prisoners that was scheduled as
part of resuming negotiations with the
Palestinian Authority. These are older
prisoners, mostly Fatah supporters. They
were arrested before the Oslo Accords in
the mid-'90s. They pose no security risk.
But it was apparently worth torpedoing
peace talks with the Palestinian Authority
just to hold on to them, while the Shalit
deal freed a huge number of prisoners in
the full knowledge that some would go
back to terror attacks.
And you can be certain that there are
released prisoners who are now planning
to kidnap Israelis in order to make more
Shalit-type deals. And when the next kid-
napping comes — and it will come — we
will again hear demands for the release of
terrorists. And this time the numbers will
be even higher than in the Shalit deal.
And those who are released the next time
will once again try to kidnap in order to
release more prisoners.
And until an Israeli leader comes along
who finally puts a stop to these these dan-
gerous, delusional transactions, there will
be only more kidnapping attempts.

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