Jewish Star Editorial

Trading for victims to be named later

Issue of July 4, 2008

Before her encounter with Samir Kuntar, Smadar Haran was a wife and mother of two daughters. Kuntar and other terrorists invaded her home in Nahariya in 1979 and shot her husband, Danny, in front of one of their girls, a four-year-old, whom he then beat to death with a gun. The other little girl died with Haran’s hand over her mouth — unable to breathe as they cowered out of sight of the terrorists who were hunting for them.

It appears Kuntar, who was sentenced to multiple life terms, will go free as part of a prisoner swap approved by Israel’s cabinet, over Mossad and Shin Bet objections. The deal is intended to win either freedom or a proper burial — it’s unclear which — for Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, two of Israel’s soldiers ambushed on the Lebanese border two years ago. Their return, alive or not, would end the terrible uncertainty endured by their families, and by Jews worldwide, who have named Goldwasser and Regev, and a third abductee, Gilad Shalit, in public prayers ever since.

In an act of moral nobility Haran wrote a letter to the cabinet in which she acknowledged that “[t]he despicable, vile, murderer Samir Kuntar isn’t, nor has he ever been, my private prisoner.” Rather, he is a prisoner of the State of Israel whose fate must be decided according to Israel’s best defensive needs and moral interests, she wrote.

“I ask that my own personal pain not be taken into account when you deliberate, despite its significance and implications,” she said. In absolving Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the cabinet of considering her feelings about Kuntar’s release, Haran said, “I cannot overlook the pain and suffering of the Goldwasser and Regev families, or the moral debt I have to all those who have worked for my safety.”

That moral debt to Israel’s defenders to never abandon them is a key part of Israel’s social contract. Pidyon Shvuyim is a Jewish moral imperative. The difficulty here is that another part of that social contract, and another moral imperative, used to be clearly stated: Israel does not negotiate with terrorists.

That’s a hard policy, one that historically required Israel’s leaders to make wrenching decisions, but in opposing the prisoner exchange, Israel’s security agencies warned that freeing Kuntar would be an invitation for the enemy to kidnap others in the future. To underscore that point, note that Prime Minister Olmert, who supported the prisoner exchange despite misgivings, was quoted as saying that it appears that the kidnappings in 2006 were carried out expressly to eventually win Kuntar’s freedom.

Like acheinu kol bais Yisroel, we hope and pray for the safe return of Goldwasser, Regev and Shalit, and for information about the fate of navigator Ron Arad, missing for 22 years. A military operation to either rescue the men or to avenge them, would be worth paying a high price for, if need be. But we fear that trading convicted killers for missing servicemen is a moral calculation sure to backfire on somebody when the killers kill again, as inevitably they will. This deal trades lives or, perhaps, corpses, now, for innocent victims to be named later.

Still, Smadar Haran carries greater moral weight in this than almost anyone, and she wrote that “I have given this matter a great deal of thought, and as hard as it may be, I will not oppose any decision made (by the government). No matter how hard it may be, my mind is at peace.”