The Terrorists Speak of Morality

This is a guest post by a friend, Channah Barkhordari.

I read an article in The Jerusalem Post tonight that has made me more sickened than perhaps any other I have read this year.

As many of you may know, there is a bill pending ratification in the Knesset that is meant to take away some of the supreme benefits being afforded to the Hamas terrorists in Israel's prisons. The logic behind the bill is that since Gilad Schalit has been held captive by Hamas for over four years, (the terrorist group refusing to reveal one iota of information regarding his whereabouts and living conditions, and continually breaking international law by restricting access to him by even the Red Cross,) it seems quite superfluous to provide amenities to Hamas terrorist prisoners that stretch over and above the legal requirements. Removing them is meant to provide some pressure on Hamas to return Gilad. (Jerusalem Post Editorial, 25/5/10)

At first I was relieved that Gilad was once again being focussed upon and that we are doing something. But if you asked me yesterday whether I thought the move would affect any serious progress, I would have said no — not because, as I discovered tonight, I should have known the sickening depth with which the leaders of Hamas deal in unconditional terror, but because the bill is simply not enough.

For one thing, I was unaware that Hamas terrorists were receiving such a range of stimulating benefits in Israel's prisons, from the option of pursuing higher education at Israel's Open University, to multi-channel cable TV. Yes, this is horribly ironic. Hamas restricts these basic rights, objective higher education and free press, from the Palestinians under their control on a consistent basis. What could make the situation clearer when the best place for a Hamas terrorist to go, or any Palestinian of Gaza for that matter, is an Israeli prison?

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, it makes sense that when your own soldiers (yes, soldiers plural—for Gilad we have the most hope, but there are more of our brothers missing—) are hidden behind circumstances so precarious we daily wonder at their life or death, that perhaps we shouldn’t make our enemies so comfortable?

But I digress. The source of my disgust was not that article, but this one. As I read, it became clear that Hamas’ reaction to the bill was an immediate threat against Gilad. And this does not mean taking away his books, TV, or visitation rights. He, of course, has none of these, and as we may guess has suffered far worse than we know. Though Israel has considered quarantine for Hamas prisoners, Gilad is already in the remotest of isolation. The exact wording of Hamas representatives is that he will “suffer,” that they will not stop those guarding him from “retaliating,” and that they would treat Schalit “according to what its religion tells it and in a way that satisfies its God.” We know what this implies; the Hamas charter spells it out clearly. This is their desire for the destruction of our people in the symbol of one IDF soldier. This may well be, G-d forbid, a threat to torture him, possibly maintaining the vitals of his physical life so they can continue to use him as a bargaining chip for freeing over a thousand Israel-kept prisoners…or possibly eventually returning him to us, G-d forbid, as they did Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser...

Yet I would expect that from Hamas. I would expect the threat, in its all-too-well-understood gravity, as they have continually called for our destruction and total annihilation, continually attempted to make it a reality. But what made me sick, though I can’t explain why, was what Jamal Nassar, Hamas legislator in Gaza, then proceeded to say. And I quote The Jerusalem Post, “The ‘Gilad Schalit Bill’ reflected the ‘moral decline’ of the Israeli government and signaled the beginning of its collapse, Nassar said” (Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 26/5/10). The “moral decline” of the Israeli government…

Many people this year have told me that things bother me too much; that I ought not let them bother me. That I’m too sensitive, that I allow things get to me, that if I learned how to let go I would be happier. "What do I care if he says it?" they say. "Let him say it." And perhaps they are right. But something so unjust, so inverted, so absolutely evil is embodied in that one statement that the word “hypocrite” is like a weak and trite pebble in the mountain of what is being invoked here. Something indescribably black and foul is hiding in the soul of its message, something that goes against humanity itself.

I will acknowledge, but not concede to those who say I have wasted my time in writing this. Perhaps I felt it simply needed to be said, or that I needed to say it. Perhaps in truth I believe that it is our sensitivity that makes us human, and that it is specifically the G-d given sensitivity of עם ישראל that defines being a “light unto the nations.” But one thing I know for sure — what happens to Gilad will be so much more than the life of a single soldier. What happens to Gilad will serve as the emotional and political barometer of a nation who has had enough of terror, a nation that seeks peace and pursues it. There can be no other outcome, because like Jerusalem, we will never forget Gilad.

Awaiting the speedy return of our brother in safety and peace.

A question on campaigning

Last Friday, shortly before Israel entered into the Jewish festival of Sukkot, Israel (and her supporters around the globe) came together as one in joy, as we learned that Gilad Schalit is alive, and seemingly well.

If and when Gilad Schalit does finally return from Gaza, I hope that he publishes his story. I am sure he had many interesting experiences over his time as a prisoner of one of the most extreme terrorist organisations on the planet. But more than anything, I want to know if he was aware of the campaign for his return.


Recently I posted my reservations about the campaign on this blog, but I now feel that a revision of my thoughts is needed. Or more accurately, a question has been posed.

The question is simple, but exceedingly difficult to answer: would Gilad Schalit have been killed had the campaign not been as strong and as vocal as it was. In previous years, Israel has had soldiers captured, but not once has a soldier returned to Israel alive.

My gut feeling is that in previous cases, most times a soldier went missing in action in enemy territory, the soldier died either while falling, or before falling, into enemy hands. I have a suspicion, however, that maybe one or two Israeli soldiers have been captured alive previously. Schalit was alive when captured, but over the course of the last three years, I, and many others, have wondered whether he had been killed by his captors.

One of the slogans adopted by the campaign has been the hopeful and yet firm, "Gilad is still alive." Many people have responded strongly against this slogan, ranging from statements that it's best not to get our collective hopes up, to messages I've seen left on facebook stating that "people should stop being so silly; Hamas realised that Israel would do a deal with them regardless of whether he was alive or dead and have almost certainly killed him by now."

Mercifully, such pronouncements have been proven false. Moreover, given that for the first time ever, a captive Israeli soldier has been proven to be alive in enemy hands, I am lead to ask the important question of whether the campaign for Schalit's release actually ended up keeping him alive. Even though I remain extremely concerned on two counts that the campaign is counter-productive, (that a swap of hundreds of terrorists for one man is dangerous and sets a precedent, and that by campaigning so publicly, we are only reducing the chances of a deal being done; for more, read my previous blog entry,) the possibility that the campaign contributed to keeping Schalit alive one that intrigues me.

I have to reconcile these concerns with the possibility that by campaigning as publicly as we did, Schalit's life was spared. We don't know much, hence my interest in hearing Schalit's story, but we do know he is alive. We take this as a given, but maybe the continuous high-profile campaigning provided Schalit with a stay of execution (quite literally). Normally when we talk about perspective, we state that it is vital to look at things in the long-term, as the short-term is less important. But in this case, while I do take issue with the long-term effect of the campaign, if it is proven that it saved Schalit's life, then I believe that it has proved itself to be worth all these ramifications.

What do you think?

Coming up against censorship

My internship at the Jerusalem Post now half-way through, I guess it's only normal that I should start coming up against some of the issues that real journalists have to contend with. And so it proved this week; when twice I came up censorship.

The first time I was prevented from working on a story was not such a bother to me - the story (that of a Chabad man who had gone missing and was suspected of having been abducted and murdered) was always going to go to a reporter more senior than myself, but the second instance of censorship was at once annoying and intensely gratifying.

About three weeks ago, I was sent an email by an ex-intern detailing a potential story about a solidarity and pressure campaign on Twitter being run by a New York-based organisation called the JIDF for Gilad Shalit. As it happens, I already knew about the story. I wasn't sure about running it though, as there have been so many rallies and solidarity drives for Shalit over the last three years. Another reason for my hesitation was that the person running the JIDF has a reputatation for sowing discord within the online Zionist community, sometimes even resorting to underhanded tactics to get his own way. Despite my reservations, upon seeing that somebody else thought this campaign was indeed newsworthy, I decided to do some research on it. I contacted the founder of the JIDF, investing quite a lot of his (and my) time in messaging him and interviewing him via email. I got some good quotes and I started typing up an article. As far as I was concerned, this thing was going to run, albeit as a smaller piece.

I should mention at this point that my news editor is a very busy man who never seems to have much time to be relaxed. It's not that he isn't a nice guy; he's dropped in to the lounge (the area of the Jerusalem Post offices where the interns would congregate) from time to time and had a laugh with us, but it's very rare that he hasn't got a lot on his plate.

At any rate, Wednesday afternoon was fairly quiet and he came in to the lounge area for a few minutes to speak to another intern. As he was leaving, I told him that I was working on this story. I expected him to approve it, as it was fairly topical given that Shalit's 23^rd birthday is next Shabbat. To my surprise he turned around and firmly and almost sharply, said "No!" Censorship #2.

I was taken aback, but regained my poise sufficiently to ask why he didn't want to run such an article. The answer he gave, as I mentioned above, irked and delighted me in equal measure. My editor's logic was that "we want him [Shalit] back... do you think that if we continue running articles like this it will make it any easier? No, of course not!" The fact is that Hamas sees our media, and realises full well that we are desperate for his release, and makes the terms of any swap deal that much higher.

If we stop to ask ourselves who we are lobbying, the simple truth is no-one but our own government - and they want him back too, of course, so what's the point? If we are demonstrating to raise awareness in other countries, the question we have to ask ourselves is, "Do we really expect Hamas to listen to popular opinion, or external pressure?"

By campaigning endlessly for Shalit's release, all we do end up doing is perpetuating his suffering. The slogan used by Habonim Dror after the Second Lebanon War, "אל תתנו לאדישות להרוג אותם - Don't let indifference kill them," until Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev's bodies were eventually returned to Israel particularly irked me - I doubt that there's even one person in Israel who didn't care about Ehud and Eldad's fate. To imply that Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora don't care about their captured soldiers is wrong, and overlooks the real reason why the two were only returned to Israel two years after the war ended, and why Shalit has not yet been released.

The fact of the matter is that Hezbollah and Hamas understand that Israel is willing to enter into deals whereby one side gains far more than the other, and hence try and squeeze Israel as much as possible. If we didn't campaign as much as we did, the story would be out of the press, and the stakes wouldn't be anywhere near as high as they are now. Israelis and Jews care hugely for their soldiers, and would give almost anything for Shalit's safe return, but not quite everything. If the price is so high as to be intolerable, then we can't turn around and accuse the government of being unsympathetic bastards - quite the opposite is true.

And so my I came up against censorship once more. But this time, paradoxical though it may sound, I was relieved and glad to be told to throw away hours of work. I might want to get my name in the paper, but it was good that my editor had his thinking cap on, kept the ever-willing intern in check and ensured that Shalit stands a better chance of returning home.