Israel’s leadership is sacrificing the lives of future victims of terrorism for the bodies of a couple of soldiers.
Hours after the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were transferred to Israel in a dramatic prisoner swap with Hizbullah which saw the release of convicted killer Samir Kuntar, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert praised the deal, and offered his condolences to the families of the reservists.
“With all of Israel, I embrace and hug the families of Regev and Goldwasser in mourning,” Olmert said in published statement.
I wonder if he also plans to embrace and hug the families of the people who will be killed by the terrorists he released.
“My throat is dry, my eyes are tearing, and my heart goes out to the families that struggled without a sign [of life], and didn’t lose hope until the very last moment,” he continued. “This is a day of removal of doubt. Certainly with regards to the fate of Udi and Eldad, may their memories be blessed, but also regarding the moral and ethical power of Israel.”
Do you suppose he also plans to sympathetically bite his lower lip? Surely morals and ethics are more about actions and outcomes than about acting out of feelings of grief and remorse, no matter how genuine. What will be Omert’s ethical position when he has to comfort the families of yet more victims of the terrorists he is releasing?
“By virtue of this power we decided to return the boys, even with the heavy price of releasing a despicable murderer,” the prime minister said. “Nobody else will understand what every Israeli understands well: the worry over the fate of every one of our soldiers is the glue which binds us as a society, and it this which allows us to survive in an area which is surrounded by enemies and terror organizations.”
Actually, what has allowed Israel to survive so far has not been empty emotional gestures that endanger citizens still living, but instead the tough mindedness to fight and win.
More on this here and here. This is really a travesty, revealing a weakness in the Israeli government that is very worrying, though not new, given the mishandling of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, etc. Bluntly, the Left seems to have proven itself incompetent at protecting the nation. This is, of course, another way that politics in Israel parallels politics in the USA.
