Posted by
aMusing on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 12:46:09 PM
Today, Israel will return
Samir Kuntar and 4 additional Hezbollah terrorists in return for the dead bodies of Ehud Godlwasser and Eldad Regev. Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post wrote an
article calling today's events "the most humiliating step" by any Israeli government.
I think that this was actually a wise strategic choice on Israel's part:
After hearing about
this, ones emotions are two fold. First, you feel confused and like Ms. Glick mentions, this will seemingly be an impetus for
future capturing of Israeli soldiers as a terrorist ploy to bring pack some
of their major terrorist operatives from Israeli jails (some of which have multiple
life sentences - Israel does not believe in the Death Penalty. In their
60 year existence they have put one person to death,
Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi who was known as the architect of the Holocaust) .
Soon after however, one comes to realize Israel's situation in the
greater world scheme. Due to Israel's tiny population, every Israeli
citizen at the age of 18 must serve in the army. Israel realizes that
if they do not make an effort to attain the remains of these dead
soldiers every mother in the country would do everything they could to
prevent their child from going to war. It would lead to a civil war
(not a physical one but an ideological one). ( "Ask not what your
country can do for you" - definitely comes to mind). Nevertheless,
their comes a point when the country has to step back and say, what is
best for our people. After surveying the situation Israel decided that
national unity is essential if they want to maintain their nationhood.
This can only be accomplished by bringing their young back from war dead of alive.
Ms. Glick might be right, terrorists probably will continue kidnapping IDF soldiers but Israel figures that they would
rather have an Army with a strong national identity then one who wont
fight for them at all.