The Movement for Reform Judaism

Reading about the effort to bring back the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from Gaza, and the appeals to get some signs of life of the two soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah in Lebanon, brings to mind once again the tyrant Stalin. His son had been taken prisoner by the Germans during World War II. They offered to exchange him for high-ranking German officers held by the Soviets. Stalin refused. He's reported to have said, "War is war." He wouldn't make an exception for his own son.

This was undoubtedly a statesman-like response, but it was also the response of a cruel man and a terrible father. No Israeli politician would dare react in this way. The traditional commandment of pidyon sh'vuim, redemption of captives, has penetrated the Israeli psyche. Any soldier or civilian in the hands of the enemy will be brought back at almost any cost. Every Israeli is expected to react to the capture as if it was his/her beloved son who was the victim.

The cost to bring back Shalit is likely to be enormous: well over a thousand Palestinian prisoners, many with blood on their hands who are likely to return to their terrorist cells and re-offend. From the state's point of view it may, therefore, be better to leave the Israeli in Palestinian terrorist hands and the Palestinians in Israeli jails. Mercifully, however, that's not how Israelis feel. They'll swallow the bitter pill of prisoner exchange in order to bring back one of their boys. They've done it several times in the past, even bringing back a reserve officer who turned out to be a criminal.

As Israel's is a citizen army with compulsory military service, every Israeli household feels vulnerable. It's one of those situations when everybody knows that it could have been one of their own. That's also why the Israeli authorities will continue to negotiate with the Hezbollah thugs for the two Israeli soldiers in their hands and be ready to sacrifice as much as it takes just to get information whether or not they're still alive. Like the Syrian Laban in the Passover Haggadah, his contemporary descendants are particularly cruel and heartless when it comes to dealing with Jews.

There are, of course, those who say that Israel isn't sacrificing as much as the statistics suggest. Not to have to guard a thousand and more terrorist bodies and not to have to feed the same number of prisoners' mouths should be a relief for Israel. After all, even after the exchange, the best part of ten thousand Palestinians will remain in Israeli prisons. New ones arrive almost daily, judging by the regular reports of new terrorist suspects having been apprehended in the West Bank.

Moreover, some say, Israel has an army and a military establishment that the terrorists don't have. It's, therefore, unrealistic to expect a symmetrical exchange. Thousand to one may, in fact, be a realistic ratio. They view the whole enterprise as a kind of game in which statistics are meaningless.

They may be right, alas, for their assessment points to the limitations of conventional power in modern warfare. Terrorists can be few in number yet more effective than large armies. The damage caused to American and British forces in Iraq and the coalition forces in Afghanistan prove the point.

All we can do is to pray for all the victims of wanton destruction and not lose sight of the prospect of better times for us all.

Jerusalem 15.4.07 

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