Triumph for Hezbollah, failure for Israel?
The recent prisoner swap between Hezbollah and the State of Israel for the remains of two Israeli soldiers stirred a chilling moral debate. Hezbollah vowed to return the remains of kidnapped and murdered soldiers for 5 Lebanese prisoners, including the notorious Samir Kuntar.
A little background:
The July 12, 2006 raid by Hezbollah into Israel that took the two soldiers captive was aimed at seizing bargaining chips in the group’s effort to free Kuntar and the several other Lebanese held by Israel.
Kuntar was part of a cell that in 1979 raided the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, shooting Danny Haran to death while his daughter Einat, 4, watched, then smashing the girl’s head, killing her as well. Haran’s wife, Smadar, hid with their 2-year-old daughter and accidentally suffocated her to death in an effort to stop her from crying out.
Kuntar was sentenced to 5 life sentences, but the value that human remains have to the parents of the murdered soldiers eclipsed his harsh sentence. Which is more important, the prison term of a brutal murderer or the remains of deceased soldiers? Can human remains continue to be used as a bargaining tool for terrorists? The implications for this debate are endless…
I wanted to add on an op-ed piece that I wrote for the Cleveland Plain Dealer back in 2006
Hello, my name is Adam Rosen and I am currently in Israel. I have been here since July 9th. When the war broke out, I was hiking in the north, and my time in Israel since then has been unforgettable. I was on a program with Young Judea/Hamagshimim in which I was volunteering at a day camp in a poor suburban area of Tel Aviv called Bat-Yam. Now I am staying with different friends and relatives until I leave a week from today. Here are a few of my observations from the past few weeks…
Last month, 20 Americans and I were hiking and rappelling through a canyon in the Golan Heights in the north of Israel, to me the most beautiful part of the tiny nation. In the distance we heard explosions and we thought nothing of them. The date was July 12 th, and we when we returned to the bus after our 10-hour hike, we learned that 2 Israeli soldiers had been kidnapped by Hezbollah and 8 had been killed. We headed south, the news translated to us by our guide. It was not good.
Now, over three weeks later, I have seen things unimaginable in a nation torn by war. At the start, life went on remarkably unchanged in and around Tel Aviv. People went about their daily business like nothing was happening. However, as the days turned into weeks, civilians on both sides perished unnecessarily and heads once held high began to slouch towards the ground.
The state of Israel has a history of less than 60 years, yet it has experienced more war than most live through in centuries. When you turn 18 you enlist in the army, and after your service you remain in the reserves until your 40’s. I have been an observer of soldiers my age, enlisted out of necessity, fighting for their nation’s right to exist. I have comforted Israelis who have lost close friends, I have seen refugees with nothing except the clothes on their back and I have felt the emotion of war first hand.
A cease-fire will not bring an end to the hate that exists, an international force won’t stop the killing. Violence is a painful method to accomplish a goal, like a very strong pill or drug. For certain ills, it can be very useful, but there are a lot of side effects. They can be explained away, but at its core lays grief and heartache. So then the worst thing at the moment when you are about to decide, it’s very difficult to what the result will be. The question we all must ask is: who wants the region of everlasting peace? Examine the goal of each side and decide for yourself.
1 response so far ↓
Dad // July 2, 2008 at 10:35 am
Ad—you should expand this entry by noting where you were when the soldiers were captured…