I read this in the newspaper earlier today - here is a link to the story on CNN.
I know we have members of this forum from Israel here, so I hope they’re not offended when I say - this seems really stupid to me.
I could see why a country would exchange an enemy prisoner for a live person of theirs who was captured - but letting Hezbollah have a guy who smashed a 4 year old girl’s head with a rifle butt after shooting her father, in exchange for the remains of dead bodies?
What kind of sane country does this?
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of these kind of prisoner exchanges - Israel gives up sometimes hundreds of prisoners, in exchange for some dead bodies. Why? What do they possibly have to gain from this, besides showing to their enemies that they’re weak and stupid?
Again, I don’t mean to offend Alessan and the other Israeli people here. It’s just - what the hell? What kind of message is this sending to Hezbollah?
It’s based on a positive sentiment - “leave no man behind” is something Israelis believe in very, very strongly. So we fight to get them back, and when that doesn’t work we trade 5 of theirs for one of ours; then 110 for one; then 100 for one; then 200 foe one and 3 dead bodies; then 5 for two dead bodies. At no point was anyone willing to stand up and say “enough.”
Especially not to the faces of the berieved families.
Combine that with a dlailing proime minister eager for any photo-op he can get his hands on, and a persistent religious belief in giving people a proper burial, and yes, an incredible amount of sentimentality and you’ve got this week’s mess.
On the other hand, say what you will about us, at least we’re not holding parades for child muderers.
Leave no man behind is a good philosophy, but the guys are fuckin’ dead! I wouldn’t really be bothered by this so much if the guy that they returned hadn’t committed such an utterly vile crime. I tend to take Israel’s side most of the time, but I can still see how one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter and all that, and I wouldn’t feel the same level of disbelief if the guy returned to Hezbollah was some kind of conventional militant who was fighting for a coherent political cause. But a guy who just basically murdered innocent people for no reason at all? And in such an unbelievably brutal way?
The Israeli government just dropped severely on my scale of respect. Like, way way down. I actually think, in this case, they’re worse than the terrorists. Because when good people stand by and let evil people commit atrocities, they become worse than the latter. In my opinion.
I find this sentiment very bizarre. The USA has some sort of similar policy of attempting to recover dead soldiers. If I was a soldier, there is no chance I’d want to go and get myself killed trying to recover a dead body a la Black Hawk Down. Although I wouldn’t be real psyched about having my body dragged naked around Mogadishu, realistically, I wouldn’t care because I’M DEAD! I definitely wouldn’t want a fellow soldier endangering himself trying to recover my body.
They may be dead, but they still have families, and those families deserve a body to bury. They gave the state one of their children, and the state owes it to them to bring those children home.
Alessan, why do they deserve to have a body to bury? Isn’t this a little bit of an unrealistic expectation for someone to have, when their loved-one has joined an army that is fighting an ongoing war?
I don’t disagree with you - as I said, this is something that’s evolved over time.
Still, you have to remember that these were draftees, not professional soldiers. That’s the key point here, and that’s the reason there’s a very different relationship between society and the military in Israel than there is in the States. The Israeli public will accept a permanent draft on the unspoken condition that it does not feel that the government sees the troops as disposable. The situation we have here is the logical result of such an attitude.
It’s a little hard to tell from the article in the OP, but my impression from other reports was that this exchange was part of a larger peace negotiation between Lebanon and Israel involving the release of all Lebanese prisoners.
So while I agree that if two corpses is all the Israelis are getting, its a crummy deal. But if its part of a larger negotiation to prevent further violence across the northern border, then its at least justifiable.
I’d argue that even if it doesn’t view its military as disposable, it does view its citizens disposable if it allows their murderer to go free in exchange for a corpse.
And what message is this sending to Hezbollah? “Let’s keep capturing Israelis so we can use them as a bargaining chip! And as a bonus, we can kill them - we don’t even need to waste time feeding them and clothing them because these fool Israelis will even accept their dead bodies in exchange for our guys!”
Remember, the IDF isn’t a volunteer army* – it’s a conscription army. The men who fight and die – while amazingly motivated to defend their family, friends and country – do not choose to do so. Ehud Goldwasser and Elad Regev, in fact, were both reservists in their mid-20’s, called up to leave their normal lives for a month – which turned into forever – and do their part to defend the country at a time of peace. Their families are not privy to this choice, either. So yes, the families dodeserve to have everything done for them, in a very real sense.
Anyone watching Karnit Goldwasser – an amazingly composed and courageous young woman, who had notoriety forced on her under awful circumstances, and carried her burden with enormous poise and dignity through the past two years – finally let go and cry over her husband, Ehud’s, coffin would have to understand why, yes, we did owe her this moment, and it was worth it – despite the terrible price.
ETA – I see **Alessan **already covered this point
I’m not saying America is better than Israel, I’m just wondering if anyone here thinks that America would trade, say, a terrorist who murdered a 4 year old girl and her father to Al Qaeda for the body of a Marine who had been killed. Or, since we don’t have a draft anymore, would we have traded a Nazi who had snuck into America and murdered a little girl to Nazi Germany in exchange for the body of a dead American soldier?
You have to remember that Israelis aren’t Americans, nor are we American Jews. Our culture, and our cultural values, are different than yours. We have a lot in common, sure, but in certain ways we’re very different. Not better, not worse, just different.
I have to admit that I wouldn’t mind so much if during his release, the Israelis surreptitiously exposed Kuntar to a lethal dose of radiation so a month from now he starts coughing up blood, his hair falls out and he dies horribly.
It just astonishes me though, that a people who stunned the entire world half a century ago with their military victory and outstanding courage in battle, defeating their gigantic and oil-rich neighbors in a six-day war that saw some of the finest military tactics in the history of modern combat, which became world-renowned for their air force and for their elite special-operations teams - in short, a country that came into existence proudly shouting to the world, “everything you thought about the Jews is wrong, and if you fuck with us, this time you will really regret it” - that this country would go on to commit such an act of acquiescence to Hezbollah, and a slap in the face to the family of the man and daughter who were brutally murdered. I just can’t wrap my head around values like this. I apologize. I really do not intend to insult your culture.
