Daniel Pipes' Writings

Related Articles

Samir Kuntar and the Last Laugh

by Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
July 21, 2008

Send

RSS

Translations of this item:

Israel has lived the past sixty years more intensively than any other country.

Its highs – the resurrection of a two-thousand year old state in 1948, history's most lopsided military victory in 1967, and the astonishing Entebbe hostage rescue in 1976 – have been triumphs of will and spirit that inspire the civilized world. Its lows have been self-imposed humiliations: unilateral retreat from Lebanon and evacuation of Joseph's Tomb, both in 2000; retreat from Gaza in 2005; defeat by Hizbullah in 2006; and the corpses-for-prisoners exchange with Hizbullah last week.

An outsider can only wonder at the contrast. How can the authors of exhilarating victories repeatedly bring such disgrace upon themselves, seemingly oblivious to the import of their actions?

One clue has to do with the dates. The highs took place during the state's first three decades, the lows occurred since 2000. Something profound has changed. The strategically brilliant but economically deficient early state has been replaced by the reverse. Yesteryear's spy masterminds, military geniuses, and political heavyweights have seemingly gone into high tech, leaving the state in the hands of corrupt, short-sighted mental midgets.

How else can one account for the cabinet meeting on June 29, when 22 out of 25 ministers voted in favor of releasing five live Arab terrorists, including Samir al-Kuntar, 45, a psychopath and the most notorious prisoner in Israel's jails, plus 200 corpses? In return, Israel got the bodies of two Israel soldiers murdered by Hizbullah. Even The Washington Post wondered at this decision.

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert endorsed the deal on the grounds that it "will bring an end to this painful episode," a reference to retrieving the bodies of war dead and appeasing the hostages' families demand for closure. In themselves, both are honorable goals, but at what price? This distortion of priorities shows how a once-formidably strategic country has degenerated into a supremely sentimental country, a rudderless polity where self-absorbed egoism trumps raison d'être. Israelis, fed up with deterrence and appeasement alike, have lost their way.

Appalling as the cabinet decision was, worse yet is that neither the Likud opposition party nor other leading public Israeli institutions responded with rage, but generally (with some notable exceptions) sat quietly aside. Their absence reflects a Tami Steinmetz Center poll showing that the Israeli population approves the swap by a nearly 2-1 ratio. In short, the problem extends far beyond the official class to implicate the population at large.

Samir Kuntar on arrival in Lebanon, complete with Hizbullah uniform and "Heil Hitler" salute (AFP).

On the other side, the disgraceful celebration of baby-murderer Kuntar as a national hero in Lebanon, where the government shut down to celebrate his arrival, and by the Palestinian Authority, which called him a "heroic fighter," reveals the depths of Lebanese enmity to Israel and its immorality, disturbing to anyone concerned with the Arab soul.

The deal has many adverse consequences. It encourages Arab terrorists to seize more Israeli soldiers, then kill them. It boosts Hizbullah's stature in Lebanon and legitimates Hizbullah internationally. It emboldens Hamas and makes a deal for its Israeli hostage more problematic. Finally, while this incident appears small compared to the Iranian nuclear issue, the two are related.

International headlines along the lines of "Israel Mourns, Hezbollah Exults" confirm the widely held but erroneous Middle Eastern view of Israel as a "spider's web" that can be destroyed. The recent exchange may give the already apocalyptic Iranian leadership further reason to brandish its weapons. Worse, as Steven Plaut notes, by equating "mass murderers of Jewish children to combat soldiers," the exchange effectively justifies the "mass extermination of Jews in the name of Jewish racial inferiority."

For those concerned with the welfare and security of Israel, I propose two consolations. First, Israel remains a powerful country that can afford mistakes; one estimate even predicts it would survive an exchange of nuclear weapons with Iran, while Iran would not.

Second, the Kuntar affair could have a surprise happy ending. A senior Israeli official told David Bedein that, now out of jail, Israel's obligation to protect Kuntar is terminated; on arrival in Lebanon, he became "a target for killing. Israel will get him, and he will be killed … accounts will be settled." Another senior official added "we cannot let this man think that he can go unpunished for his murder of a 4-year-old girl."

Who will laugh last, Hizbullah or Israel?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

July 22, 2008 update: Shlomo Avineri and I don't usually agree, but he has an article in Ha'aretz today, "The state, not the families," that builds nicely on my characterization of Israel as "a once-formidably strategic country has degenerated into a supremely sentimental country, a rudderless polity where self-absorbed egoism trumps raison d'être."

Anyone looking in from the outside at the emotional turmoil and media circus surrounding the return of the bodies of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser would likely have concluded that Israel is run not by the government but by families worried about the fate of their loved ones. Since the matter of [Hamas hostage] Gilad Shalit has still not been solved, it is worth returning some sanity to the public debate, and not to repeat our mistakes.

Shalit's return is not a primary strategic challenge for Israel. Israel has a clear responsibility to bring him home, but it also has a more important commitment to protect its citizens from rocket and mortar fire, because an entire region and tens of thousands of people are suffering from these attacks and the terror they bring. And the state is responsible for defending them.

Hamas' control of Gaza, and not Shalit's abduction, which is one of its consequences, is the strategic challenge facing Israel. There is no easy answer to this challenge, which is characterized by an extremist group committed to Israel's destruction only a stone's throw from Israeli population centers. It also includes the never-ending attacks on Israeli towns, and the links between Hamas and Iran - and its threats.

The press, and in particular the electronic media, has a clear tendency to personalize the situation and turn it into a heart-rending story. Matters of principle and reality attract less attention than another interview with family members or their supporters. The deterioration of the debate over a difficult strategic issue to the level of a soap opera is worrying and outrageous. After all, it is clear that plucking away time after time on the strings of the families' distress only strengthens Hamas: Every appearance of a family member on television - and it makes no difference what they say - is another victory for Hamas' brutal tactics of extortion. The family members should think about this. …

The way Israel deals with the strategic challenge of Hamas has effects far beyond Gilad Shalit's personal fate. The cabinet must have the courage to tell the public this, and the family, too, despite all the pain. After all, the state sends its soldiers off to battle knowing the risks to their lives. It is critical to understand that policy is set by the state, not the families.

July 28, 2008 update: The above article inspired a criticism by Yoram Schweitzer that the Jerusalem Post published on July 24. I reply to Schweitzer today, again in the Jerusalem Post, in "May an American Comment on Israel?"

Aug. 3, 2008 update: Schweitzer has again critiqued me, to which I have commented at "A Final Reply to Yoram Schweitzer."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Related Topics: Arab-Israel conflict & diplomacy, Counter-terrorism, Israel

To receive articles regularly by email, join the MEF News mailing list.

Daniel Pipes' Writings

Samir Kuntar and the Last Laugh

Related Items