Editor's Note: Daniel Gordis is president of the Shalem Foundation and senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. His latest book, Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War That May Never End, won the 2009 National Jewish Book Award.
By Daniel Gordis, Foreign Affairs
No one in Israel is calling the agreement signed for Gilad Shalit’s freedom a good deal. On many levels it is terrible. Israel is releasing more than 1000 prisoners, several hundred of them hardened terrorists, for one soldier. For the first time, the Jewish state essentially acquiesced as a terrorist organization dictated the list of prisoners to be released, including several responsible for mass deaths of Israeli citizens, a notion that would once have been unthinkable. Israel may well have given its enemies incentive to kidnap more soldiers. And the terrorists now being released are likely to attack and kill Israelis in the future.
Despite these facts, the deal for Shalit passed a cabinet vote by an overwhelming margin (26 in favor and only three opposed), and the vast majority of Israeli citizens support it. In agreeing to this prisoner swap, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli public chose to return to their roots, to revive a central tenet of old-time Israeli ideology: we do not leave our sons in the field.
The tenet is as old as the country itself. It stems from the fact that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is a citizens’ army, in which conscription is universal and every family knows that it could face the same tragedy as the Shalits. And in the army itself, the “stretcher march,” in which soldiers in training are ordered to carry one of their heaviest comrades on a stretcher up hills and down valleys for miles, is a formative ritual meant to instill one message: there is never a case in which soldiers cannot bring their wounded home.
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This ethic is taught in other armies, too, but it resonates differently in Israel. From the moment of his capture, Gilad Shalit has been a household name. Compare this to the silence in the United States regarding Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier held hostage by the Taliban since June 2009. Ever since Shalit’s kidnapping, Israeli society has been wracked by a sense that it failed in its obligation to him.
Bringing Shalit home, the costs of the agreement with Hamas notwithstanding, is thus a fulfillment of an honored tradition. And it comes at a time when many of Israel’s old assumptions about its surroundings no longer hold. As the country struggles to navigate the economic and political upheavals in the Middle East and across the world, the agreement represents a return to Israel’s founding values - an opportunity for politicians and citizens alike to reassure themselves that, in some ways, today’s Israel is still the same country in which many of them were raised.
The Shalit agreement was prompted by the Israeli security establishment’s realization that it could not rescue its captive soldier. The very incident in which Shalit was captured - a cross-border Hamas raid from Gaza - was an abject failure for the IDF. In the five years since the kidnapping, the same military that destroyed the Egyptian air force on the ground in June 1967 and that rescued over one hundred hostages from Entebbe, Uganda in 1976 continuously told the government that it had no means of freeing a soldier being held just beyond the border. Admittedly, over the past generation, Israel’s enemies have become far more sophisticated. But this deal, along with Israel’s lack of military options to address the Iranian nuclear threat, has left Israelis feeling an unfamiliar sense of weakness.
That unease has only been compounded by the tumult of the Arab Spring. Previously, when Israel enjoyed close relationships with Egypt and Jordan and quiet on its border with Syria, it could focus almost exclusively on the security threats posed by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. But with the Muslim Brotherhood rising in Egypt, Bashar al-Assad’s regime slipping in Syria, and turmoil spreading in Jordan, Israel is operating in uncharted territory, and its people know it; the anxiety on the street is palpable.
Making matters worse, the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations exposed the fact that Israel is more marginalized on the global stage than ever before. And Turkey, once a stalwart ally, has recently turned strongly against it. As it lost friends across the region and around the world, Jerusalem began to wonder whether it could successfully broker a Shalit deal without them. It decided to act while the political map remained familiar.
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The Palestinian statehood initiative also upended the notion that while Hamas was a terrorist organization with which Israel could not negotiate, Fatah was the party that would eventually strike a deal. Since Israel’s invasion of Gaza in 2008, Hamas has been more or less quiet. Although there have been rocket attacks and a cross-border strike from Egypt that may have involved elements from Gaza, those incidents were quickly quelled by Hamas. Yet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ demand for statehood at the UN nearly dealt Israel a significant blow. Should he have achieved recognition, Abbas could have pushed for sanctions on Israel for occupying another member of the General Assembly and pursued claims against it in international courts.
Furthermore, in his speech before the UN General Assembly, Abbas left Israelis with little hope for peace. His refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state or to drop his demand for the right of return for Palestinian refugees into Israel proper made clear that the conflict is not about to be resolved. Israelis recognized that they would have to learn to live with this struggle, not dream of its resolution. For many, that means periodically swallowing agreements such as the swap for Shalit. To maintain the legitimacy needed to draft its sons into an army that may well be at war for generations, Israel’s government needed to show that it remains committed to bringing them home at any cost.
Israel’s predicament on the international front has been accompanied by social unrest at home. A summer of massive street protests across the country began because of grievances about the cost of housing but soon incorporated complaints about the rising prices of schooling, food, and raising children, as well as a myriad of other issues. The demonstrations accused Israel of abandoning social justice, another long-standing principle of Zionism. A strike by Israel’s doctors demanding more reasonable hours and increased pay still threatens to cripple the country’s public hospitals, to the point that the government has threatened to import foreign physicians. And thanks to the so-called price tag attacks - acts of vengeance by extremist Israeli settlers on Palestinians and Arabs, including the burning of a mosque in northern Israel this past month - racial tensions between Jews and Arabs have been on the rise, leaving Israelis disgusted and worried. All this social discord over the last several months has exposed fissures in a country that once prided itself on solidarity.
With Israel’s international standing crumbling and its internal cohesion fraying, Netanyahu, whose own political position was becoming tenuous, urgently needed to restore Israeli morale. He had to show that he could make tough decisions and shift the focus away from the country’s troubles to a foundational value that could reunite it. By striking the agreement to return Shalit, he succeeded. Netanyahu reminded the country of at least some of the core values that have always been critical to its ability to persevere - values never more critical than now, as Israel’s enemies multiply and its social fabric decays.
Ironically, the cabinet voted for the Shalit agreement 25 years to the day after Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad was shot down over Lebanon, never to be seen again. Israelis decided not to re-enact that horrific affair, with the many false hopes of his return, and all of its desperation. They resolved to make a terrible deal, and a painful one, and in so doing recaptured just a bit of the Israel that once was, while they still could.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of Daniel Gordis.
© 2011 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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It was time for Gilad to come home, and I am so happy that this has happened. Yes, it was a deal with the devil but at least Gilad has his life back. Though I imagine he will be scarred emotionally for years to come.
Yes, good to see Gilad free. This transaction was meticulously calculated. The Hamas wanted to recapture the hearts of the Palestinians from the Palestinian Authority under Abbas, who bid for statehold before the U.N. four weeks ago. Nethanyahu's government is struggling for political survival. The return of Gilad, a national hero, would boost Nethanyahu's popularity.
It is VERY possible now that this exchange will be used by the Palestinians to justify their refusal to negotiate a peace agreement.
Wow...deal with the devil? Look in the mirror and you'll see one. Stop stealing other peoples land and enslaving the people. Hw who plants the wind will reap the storm?
So happy for Sgt. Shilat...I was afraid he wasn't even alive....he could barely raise his hand to salute, and he is emaciated and having difficulty breathing...it's heartbreaking. But I'm so happy he is home in Israel. God Bless Netanyahu. I wish for peace – stop the wars. It solves nothing.
BOTH sides are necessary to end the war and make peace. The only way for Israel to make peace UNILATERALLY is to FORCE the other side to beg for peace.
How? Wouldn't it be a wishful thinking on your part?
IF hamas provokes at all, in any way, israel can HAMMER them now that all israelis are out of gaza...let the IAF exact the punishment these monkeys so richly deserve.
Monkeys are far more intelligent than bears....IAF, IDF – when will people like you get it, this conflict will not end with war – it will only end when the palestinians get what they want. Really simple.
As long as the Palestinians are willing the war to continue it means that they're happy with its results. THEY ARE GETTING WHAT THEY WANT. If and when the number of dead Palestinians will satisfy those still alive they will ask for peace negotiations.
Sam, SIMPLE is not the right word for this conflict. The Arabs plays"All or Nothing game" from start. Compromise is out of the question from their side- they want us out of ALL the land they call Palestine, including Tel-Aviv and all major cities.
I agree that if we will them all they want it will be the end of war, but also the end of the state of Israel....
Bear you are right, that is the only way to give them a full dose of the malady.
and you expect roses in return ? wake up moran!!!
One quick read of this reveals why there will NEVER be peace in the area surrounded by Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Never. BOTH sides are playing a zero sum game. It is high time that the US simply stop wasting billions for nothing. We now have military bases where the oil is, we get NOTHING from the supposed 'friendship' – this 'friendship' is a net strategic liability. Without our dollars (or rather the redirection of China's loans) the two sides MAY actually try for real peace. I doubt it. I'm 47, this has been going on as long as I have been watching the news. Nothing has changed except the body count, which is now exponentially disproportionate against one side. Let's cut our losses and focus our attention to somewhere we can actually do some good.
What will happen, in your opinion, if the US will "stop wasting billions for nothing"? Here is my take. Feel free to disagree with it... If the US will stop its military aid Israelis will have to cut military spending and will have to use less expensive and less precise but no less effective means to fight the terrorists. For example, they'll use tanks and artillery instead of attack helicopters and laser-guided rockets. Instead of destroying the room where terrorists are hiding the city block will be destroyed and more civilians will be killed as a result. Further, the Arab states encouraged by the US steps will try (again) to destroy the Jewish state and the Israelis, without American support, will have no choice but to defend their country and turn some Arab countries into radioactive desert making the richest oil fields on the planet unusable for many centuries. As a result YOU will have to pay $50 or more for a gallon of gas. Everyone else (including the businesses) will have to pay more for everything. The world economy will face a crisis of epic proportions. Are you sure that THIS is what you want?
by your behaviour you created too many enemies, like in your entire history and anywhere around the world and for a good reason you see.. tough luck
I hope the leadership of this country start thinking along the same lines. But its just wishful thinking. I am 47 also and I have seen the WHOLE world suffer due to this conflict. When will leadership get into their senses ?
islam is absolutely vile. All moslems must be made to feel shame for their vile ideology of islam just as Germans were shamed for their vile ideology of nazism.
Islam is a religion, and Nazism is a Ideology. No one is going to feel shame for their religion. As someone who is not Jewish or Muslim or Christian any religion pushed to an extreme is Vile luckily those people are normally in the minority. Both sides need to work together otherwise there will only be more of the same or worse and in the end both side will have to compromise. Only question is how many die?
It will be easy to get the 1000 towel heads back.
good for gilad, just as happy for the 100+ palestinian falmilies
Not 100, more than 1000 families. unfortunately,around 480 among them are beasts that killed Intentionally innocent civilians children, women, babies..
Very interesting article.
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Thank you for your consideration
Attention to Hamas and Hesbollah...
The weakness of the beast has been detected, act imediately...
This is no humanitariam act of greatness of Israel, it is just SATANyahu thirst to stay in POWER!
It took all of 1 day before the released Peace Partners started making speaches in Gaza ( to children ) about becoming human bombs .
There will never be peace until the aggressors give back at least some of the land they stole and let the palestinians return home. How would you like if China invaded your hometown and you can never return to retreive among other things the G! joe you buried in your backyard when you were 4 years old?
Let me clarify your statement for you, Ram... AGGRESSORS, by definition, are those who started the war. As all wars in the Middle East were started by the Arabs (NOT by Israel) it is clear that the Arabs (NOT Israel) were the aggressors. The question of the "lands the aggressors stole" is mute as Israel never claimed that the Arabs stole any Israeli lands. The question of "allowing the Palestinians return home" is even more mute. 98% of the Palestinian Arabs were born in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and other places. They NEVER lived in Israel, NEVER were Israeli citizens and have absolutely no reason to call Israel their "home". The remaining 2% of elderly Palestinian Arabs who were born in the land where Israel is located have every right to apply to Israeli Immigration and (after convincing the Israelis that they will become loyal citizens of the Zionist State) they will be granted immigration approval.