The Prisoner Swap

I've been following the whole kidnapped soldiers saga since 2006. It's hard to ignore it when you're in Israel. You just feel that sense of loss of those missing soldiers, Gilad Schalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev. But life has been going on to prove to Hezbollah that they're not going to dampen Israel's hopes nad pride.

So, when Hezbollah and Israel made a deal to do a prisoner swap, I felt a sense of slight hope and relieved that it's two soldiers down, one to go (and one MIA- Ron Arad). The media has been so focused on Schalit that I often wondered more about the other two. The Hizbeollah consider Schalit more valuable because he's sargeant and Goldwasser and Regev were just ranked reservists. As part of the deal, Hezbollah was supposed to give an updated report of Ron Arad's whereabouts. PM Olmert was determined to prevent another Ron Arad situation- a situation of not knowing where the body of a soldier is for years and years, by approving this deal before the report actually came. He wanted to be sure that those three soldiers actually came home to Israel-dead or alive. When Hezbollah sent the report over the weekend, Olmert was completely dissatisfied. It only contained several pages of his diary from 1987 (or 1988?) and two photographs from that time. Hezbollah claimed that it was the last time they saw him and has no idea where he really is now. Unfortunately, deal was deal so the Israeli Cabinet voted on a majority rule for the swap to be set on Wednesday. So the exchange ended up like this:

Hezbollah to Israel
Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser
All the bodies of killed soldiers from the Second Lebanon War that the fighters snatched

Israel to Hezbollah
198 Palestinian/Lebanese fighters' bodies, exhumed from a cemetery near a kibbutz
4 Lebanese fighter prisoners
Samir Kuntar, whom Israelis deem as one of the most notorious killers

It might not sound very much but the release of Kuntar is a huge deal. In 1979, he and his accomplices raided Nahariyya, a city north of Haifa, and killed 4 people, two of them little girls. One of them was accidently smothered by her mother to keep her cries quiet. But Israelis were (and still are) furious over how Kuntar ended the other girl's life- by shooting her father in front of her and then crushing her skull against the rocks with the butt of his rifle. Hezbollah see him as a hero for his terrorist act. Kuntar was Israel's last playing card in obtaining more information on Arad.

Israel held its breath but not very long on Wednesday morning to find out the truth about Goldwasser and Regev. Since their capture on July 12 in 2006, there had been no report on their condition, they only reported Schalit's. The reservists arrived in coffins, their bodies in very poor condition. And the Israelis brought these 5 prisoners to the border alive with a truck in tow of bodies. Something's slightly wrong with this picture in my opinion.

Now, Israel has no trump cards left. Hezbollah in Lebanon is celebrating his return and its leader, Nasrallah, briefly greeted him in public on a red carpet. But Israel argues that the prisoner swap was no Hezbollah victory but a moral victory for Israel. The IDF need to be able to persuade its soldiers that Israel will always do what it can to bring them home to their families (dead or alive) and never be lost in the enemy's hands.

When I received the official news of the soldiers, I felt a very strong pang of sadness all day. The feeling was very similar to my experience of Yom HaZikron (Israeli Memorial Day) a year ago. It didn't help a lot that Roni spend some time talking about the swap for the first half hour of class yesterday and today. I shouldn't be shocked that many of my classmates were unaware of the situation because they weren't so closely tied to Israel and following the news. I felt angry on one hand that Hezbollah brought our men in coffins and we were humane enough to keep our prisoners alive instead of rotting in the cells. On the other hand, it was all over and the men came home. Then I begin to wonder, just how can we get Schalit back now that we don't have any "high" cards left? Many of the prisoners that IDF captured over the years (less than 2,000 in prison now) were what I consider accomplices, not ring leaders. It is very hard to be in Israel when the country feels a sense of loss and mourns for a day or two. And accept the fact that we lost two soldiers (an equivalent of 1,000 American soldiers).

But that's just the fact of living in Israel. We can handle the pain while going about our daily routines. For that, I went to the beach for the afternoon and did my homework yesterday. I did buy copy of JPost yesterday and a Hebrew newspaper, Ye'diot Achronot, today for my personal collection. Yes, I can read some sections of the articles in Hebrew!

Today, I moved on a bit. I went to the beach in the late afternoon with Mor and Or. Mor and I got completely mixed up in our language over our meeting place. She texted me that Or was waiting for me at the bus station. I got very confused because I was supposed to meet them in Merkaz Carmel, not down by the beach where the Central Bus Station is. When I finally met up with them at a bus stop, we were just happy to finally be together. Then before Mor dropped me back off at the same place several hours later, I said to her, "So you know, in English, in America, this thing over there is called a 'bus stop.' And a 'bus station' is a building with all the buses. That's why I got very confused over where we were supposed to meet!" Apparently, I know the bus system in Haifa better than them (they usually drive the family car to get around). It was pretty funny! We decided that from now on, it would be just easier if I just went to the beach and met them there given that 46 goes directly there.

Now I have a monster load of homework before the Israeli family comes to Haifa tomorrow!!!