2008 Israel–Hezbollah prisoner swap

infobox generic | color = #cc9999
name = 2008 Israel-Hezbollah prisoner swap
sub0 =
img1 = Eldad Udi leb.jpg
width1 = 300px
cap1 =
lbl1 = Date:
row1 = July 16 2008
lbl2 = Place:
row2 = Israel-Lebanon border
lbl3 = Cause:
row3 = 2006 Lebanon War
lbl4 =
row4 =
style21 = style="text-align:center;"On July 16 2008, Hezbollah transferred the coffins of two captured Israeli soldiers, [cite web|url=http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215330982807&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull| title = UN identifying bodies presumed to be of Goldwasser, Regev|date = 2008-07-16| publisher="The Jerusalem Post"] Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, in exchange for incarcerated Palestine Liberation Front militant and convicted murderer Samir Kuntar, four Hezbollah militants, and bodies of about 200 other Lebanese and Palestinian militants captured by Israel. [cite web|url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1002425.html| title = Coffins said to hold bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev taken to Israel-Lebanon border|date = 2008-07-16| publisher="Haaretz"] The Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, stated that Israel has agreed to swap five prisoners with Hezbollah to provide the bodies of two Israeli soldiers captured in 2006.

The exchange deal was carried out in accordance with the Red Cross and UN observers. [cite web|url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25697873| title = Hezbollah hands over coffins in prisoner swap|date = 2008-07-16| publisher="Msnbc"]

Only one month earlier, on June 1, 2008, Israel released the Lebanese prisoner Nissim Nasser, in exchange for which Hezbollah handed over a box reportedly containing the remains of Israeli soldiers killed during the 2006 war. [cite web
url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5211930.stm
title=Who are the Mid-East prisoners?
publisher=BBC News
date=16 July 2008
accessdate=2008-11-07]

Reactions

News of the soldiers' deaths were met with celebration by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, as well as in parts of Lebanon in response to Kuntar's release, including the capital, Beirut; Israeli experts said the majority of Lebanese viewed it as a victory for their enemy, Hezbollah, that would have a negative impact. [Nathan Cohen, The Jerusalem Post (July 17, 2008). [http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331011465&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull "Israeli experts say many Lebanese are not celebrating"] . Retrieved July 17, 2008.] In Gaza City the Palestinians celebrated by handing out sweets. [cite web|url=http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215330987125&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull| title = Gazans celebrate at sight of coffins turned over by Hizbullah|date = 2008-07-16| publisher="The Jerusalem Post"]

Israel's deputy foreign minister, Majalli Whbee, called the Beirut celebrations "shameful", stating that "Kuntar's fans laud a man who prides himself on smashing a child's skull".Cite news|url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3569288,00.html|title=Deputy FM Whbee: Beirut Celebrations Shameful|author=Nahmias, Roee|date=2008-07-16|accessdate=2008-07-19|publisher=Ynetnews] The foreign ministry also released a Hasbara video in Arabic claiming Israel's moral victory in the swap.

The swap was described as "lopsided" in news headlines in the U.S. [cite news|url=http://www.newsweek.com/id/139594|title=Israeli critics question lopsided prisoner swap|author=Ariel Schalit|publisher=Associated Press via "Newsweek"|date=Jul 16, 2008] [cite news|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92273751|title=Israeli critics question lopsided prisoner swap|author=STEVEN GUTKIN and ARON HELLER|publisher=Associated Press via NPR|date=July 16, 2008] "Newsweek" reported: "Americans often find it difficult to understand how Israelis can trade hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for one or two Israelis, alive or dead. Kuntar's case points up how frustrating and difficult those calculations can be." [cite news|url=http://www.newsweek.com/id/144248|title=Mideast: Why Israel is Freeing Samir Kuntar|author=Kevin Peraino|publisher="Newsweek"|date= Jul 1, 2008]

Criticism of the celebrations held in Lebanon as repulsive and uncivilized were ubiquitous in the U.S. and other Western media.cite news|url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3570116,00.html|title= US papers call Kuntar welcome 'repulsive'|author=Yitzhak Benhorin|publisher="Ynetnews"|date=07.19.08] "Newsday" reported: "The reception Kuntar received has alarmed Israelis and Americans who don't understand why Lebanon declared a national holiday to honor a man convicted of killing four people in a 1979 attack, including a 4-year-old girl." [cite news|url=http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/monday/news/ny-world215771348jul21,0,5237021.story|title=WORLD & NATION UPDATE: ABROAD|publisher="Newsday"|date=July 21, 2008] In a "Boston Globe" article entitled "A strange kind of hero":

But beyond all tactical and political considerations, there is something morally repulsive in the hero's welcome given the most famous - or notorious - of the Lebanese prisoners released by Israel. Samir Kuntar had been sentenced to 542 years in prison for killing four people during a raid in 1979. Kuntar executed a father, Danny Haran, in front of his 4-year-old daughter. Then he killed the little girl by smashing her head against a rock with a rifle butt.

This is the creature Nasrallah hailed as a resistance hero, the figure Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called a "huge hero who sacrificed 30 years of his life for the Palestinian issue," the celebrity that Lebanon's president and prime minister saluted as a liberated freedom fighter.

All wars are inhumane. But not all warriors lose their humanity. [cite news|url=http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/07/18/a_strange_kind_of_hero/|title=A strange kind of hero|publisher="The Boston Globe"|date=July 18, 2008]

The "New York Daily News" launched the heading "A deal with the devils", and said the injustice of the agreement was "too painful to contemplate. There he was, a terrorist guilty of inhumanity in the extreme, walking free to the cheers of comrades in arms. And there they were, two black coffins bearing the remains of Israeli soldiers, held by Hizbullah for just this purpose. To be swapped, the blameless dead for the guilty living. To be traded as chits in conscienceless extortion. To be used in vile celebration of murder. Wednesday's exchange between Israel and Hizbullah could not have been more searing."

The "New York Post" wrote: "Lebanon declared a state holiday as six bloodstained terrorists - newly freed from Israeli prisons - got a red-carpet hero's welcome."

The shameful exchange ended the two-year nightmare for the parents of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who until the coffins were delivered didn't know for certain whether their sons were alive or dead. It also underscored Israel's deeply felt imperative never to abandon soldiers in the field.

The "Post" added "this latest exchange may well imperil future Israeli hostages." [cite news|url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/07182008/postopinion/editorials/a_shameful_exchange_120485.htm|title=A SHAMEFUL EXCHANGE|publisher="New York Post"|date=July 18, 2008]

A writer for "Democracy Arsenal", hosted by the National Security Network, wrote, after describing the murders Kuntar perpetrated and the celebrations in Lebanon for him: "Not to take sides here, but when people wonder about the recalcitrance of Israeli leaders to enter peace agreements with their neighbors this revolting episode serves as a worthwhile reminder." [cite news|url=http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2008/07/a-celebration-f.html|title=A "Celebration" for Kantar|author=Michael Cohen|publisher=Democracy Arsenal|date=July 16, 2008]

Canada's "Calgary Herald" reported: "No words can express the revulsion the civilized world feels for the hero's welcome given Samir Kuntar by Hezbollah upon his exchange for two Israeli soldiers killed in Israel's 2006 war with Lebanon." It concludes:

Even sadder was Lebanon's declaration of a national holiday to celebrate Kuntar's return, along with his speech thanking God for his release. Not only is the blood of Smadar's family as red -- it has stained Lebanon's international image in the aftermath of such a shameful celebration. [cite news|url=http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/theeditorialpage/story.html?id=b11fe9b4-9f32-4b8b-ac3f-bf5f02dede04|title=Bitter exchange|publisher="Calgary Herald"|date=July 20, 2008]

Mona Charen wrote: "What can you say about a people who welcome a child murderer as a hero?" [cite news|url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20080718/cm_uc_crmchx/op_56764|title=A Child Killer's Homecoming|author=Mona Charen|publisher="Yahoo! News"|date=Jul 18, 2008]

David Pryce-Jones wrote:

The Nazi S.S. killed Jewish children with a brutality similar to Kuntar's, but they did not then appear on public platforms to boast to the world of what they had done; on the contrary they kept their crimes as secret as they could, thereby acknowledging the survival somewhere in them of a guilty conscience. But here are important and supposedly responsible men who find it in themselves to embrace, encourage, and hold up as a model a man as vile as any, as though there was no such thing as conscience, and never has been. By every human standard, this is degradation, this is depravity. [cite news|url=http://pryce-jones.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWFlZjBmMzA3NTRhNjkwMjYxMjEwYzU2NWM3MTNiOGQ=|title=Samir Kuntar: Vile By Any Human Standard|author=David Pryce-Jones|publisher="National Review Online"|date=July 18, 2008]

In a "Baltimore Sun" editorial: "Trading the remains of two dead soldiers for a notorious terrorist and four Hezbollah militants hardly seems a fair exchange. And it wasn't. The Israeli reservists, Sergeant Goldwasser and Staff Sgt. Eldad Regev, were kidnapped in an unprovoked raid and wounded. ... In contrast, Mr. Kuntar's crime was a planned operation that terrorized a young Israeli family, leaving three of its members dead." [cite news|url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bal-ed.notebook19jul19,0,5404195.story|title=A painful price|author=Ann LoLordo|publisher="Baltimore Sun"|date=July 19, 2008]

In "A moment of moral clarity", Gil Troy of McGill University writes in the "Montreal Gazette": "Stated angrily, 'How do you welcome a child murderer as a hero?' is the question Israelis are asking - and the rest of the civilized world should be asking, too.

By contrast, the massive celebrations in Lebanon for Kuntar and four other terrorists revealed not only the thuggery of Hezbollah but the descent of Lebanon itself. Rolling out the red carpet for a murderer, dispatching the country's top leaders to greet someone who crushed a 4-year-old's skull, declaring a national day of celebration, revealed just how thoroughly the Lebanese leadership had succumbed to the brutal sensibilities of Hassan Nasrallah and his Hezbollah terrorists.

He concludes: "A nation that risks so much even just to bring two corpses home, a country that celebrates life not death, is not only a worthy ally - but a dangerous adversary when provoked." [cite news|url=http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=d58f760a-55aa-45bf-aa5c-85bcda0cd072|title=A moment of moral clarity|author=Gil Troy|publisher="The Gazette"|date= July 18, 2008]

The Israeli consul general to the American Southwest wrote in the "Houston Chronicle":

The way in which Hezbollah is celebrating the return of a man whom it calls a hero because Kuntar smashed the skull of a little girl is irrelevant. To Israel, whatever is said by people whose heroes are skull smashers, who hunt women and children in order to kill them, has no bearing. What is important are Israel's values.

In Israel's eyes, a hero is someone who fights terror to defend civilians at the risk of his or her own life. Israel's heroes go to battle equipped with, in addition to their weapons, the reassuring knowledge that they are protecting human beings who share their beliefs and who are also prepared to pay a price in order to realize them.

Yarden writes that "For Hezbollah, Kuntar is a hero of the highest order. To Israelis and the rest of the civilized world, he is one of the most despicable terrorists," and includes that a Lebanese colleague has contacted him saying the celebrations were shameful for the Lebanese majority. [cite news|url=http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5896884.html|title=A fitting welcome home for Israel's heroes|author=Asher Yarden|publisher="Houston Chronicle"|date=July 19, 2008]

ee also

*Israeli MIA prisoner exchanges

References