A long sense of history

Editorial

Jewish history is tragically filled with intolerable choices. The trade of 1,027 prisoners in exchange for the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is the latest.

Bringing Shalit home was not just a promise to the Shalit family, it is a promise to every Israeli family that sends sons and daughters to serve their country. And, the implications of this deal will resonate for years, raising vast existential questions.

In previous swaps, for instance, the Israeli public has been assured that those being released do not have “blood on their hands.” No such guarantee is being made in the Shalit swap. Indeed, among the murderers, getaway drivers, plotters and enablers being released is Abed el-Aziz Salha, perhaps the most memorable case of blood on the hands in the bloody history of Palestinian terror. Salha was the young man photographed in 2000 standing at the window of the Ramallah police station waving his blood-soaked hands, confirming to the ecstatic crowd below the brutal lynching of two Israel Defence Forces reservists who took a tragic wrong turn.

If this swap did reflect Israelis’ (and Jews’) reverence for every individual life, what about the lives of those who were killed and maimed by the terrorists being set free? What about the lives of the surviving families of those victims, including a Vancouver family who lost a daughter in a deadly 1989 bus attack, the same attack that injured a second daughter? And what, far more urgently, about the lives that could be lost if these 1,027 terrorists return to their business of killing? (Two studies suggest that either 50 or 60 percent of prisoners freed in previous such swaps have returned to their murderous vocation.) And how can this swap be perceived by terrorists as anything but an engraved invitation to take more live captives?

This also brings legitimately into question Israel’s integrity as a country that prides itself on the rule of law, a country that strives to adhere to principles of fairness, justice and a balance between the rights of offenders and the rights of victims and society. How this swap comports with these values is a mystery.

Like the wine glass under the chuppah, every joy in Jewish life is tempered with a longer sense of history. We celebrate with tears of joy the return of Gilad to his family, which now includes the entire country and the Jewish people. But we fear the tears of anguish to be cried in future as many of the terrorists for whom he was traded return to their life’s mission. Already antisemites are barraging the Internet with hate-filled material, proving, as if we needed more evidence, that Israel can do no right in the world’s eyes or put itself at risk enough.

As Canadians, at least, we can take solace that we are blessed to live in a society that is not faced with these sorts of nightmarish choices. As Jews, we lament the brutal choices we are forced to make.

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