Today, the Israeli cabinet approved a prisoner swap deal with Hizbullah in which Israel will receive the bodies of IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in exchange for notorious Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar.
Actually, that’s only part of it, albeit the main part. In addition, Israel will receive a report regarding Ron Arad, and the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the Second Lebanon War but never returned, while handing over four illegal Lebanese terrorists, the remains of dozens of infiltrators and terrorists (including eight Hizbulah fighters), and information regarding four missing Iranian diplomats. Did I mention we also have to release palestinian prisoners?
You can probably tell I am not impressed with this deal. In fact, with all due respect to the Goldwasser and Regev familes – whose suffering I could not even comprehend – the deal stinks. Assuming Ehud and Eldad are dead, we are essentially gaining their corpses and giving up one of the most brutal terrorists in recent memory. An unrepentant one at that.
Not only that, but this sets a very bad precedent. The terrorists now know we will pay an alarmingly high price, even for dead bodies. Which means if they capture live Israelis in future, gone is the deterrent to keep them alive.
No, this deal stinks. Unless, for example, we have secretly injected Kuntar with an agent that will kill him, but not before he spends much time in excruciating pain.
