The Shalit Deal – Whose Victory?
By Yaakov Lappin
JINSA Visiting Fellow
It is not often that scenes of joy wash over Israel and the Gaza Strip simultaneously.
Israelis were celebrating the freedom of a soldier who was abducted five years ago while guarding his country’s borders. He was seized in an unprovoked cross-border raid and held by Hamas in violation of all international norms.
By Yaakov Lappin
JINSA Visiting Fellow
It is not often that scenes of joy wash over Israel and the Gaza Strip simultaneously.
Israelis were celebrating the freedom of a soldier who was abducted five years ago while guarding his country’s borders. He was seized in an unprovoked cross-border raid and held by Hamas in violation of all international norms.
On the other side of the border, Gazans took part in a triumphant homecoming ceremony to honor jihadi combatants guilty of war crimes and the intentional murder of hundreds of unarmed civilians.
The trade of 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners for a single Israeli soldier has bewildered some international observers, and touched off a debate over whether Israel had anything to celebrate at all.
The names on the prisoner release list were linked to some of the darkest scenes of death and destruction to have afflicted Israelis in recent years. They included Nasser Yataima, convicted of planning the 2002 suicide bomb attack on the Park Hotel in Netanya, in which 30 civilians lost their lives and 140 wounded.
Walid Anajas, a man who helped plan a suicide bomb attack on a Jerusalem café in 2002, killing 12 civilians and injuring 54, was also released. So was Musab Hashlemon, sentenced to 17 life sentences for dispatching two suicide bombers to buses in Beersheba in 2004. Sixteen passengers were murdered in that attack.
From a regional perspective, Hamas’s claim to a major achievement on the back of the Shalit deal is convincing. Its standing in the Palestinian street and the wider Arab-Muslim world has been undeniably boosted. Despite Israel’s overwhelming military superiority, Hamas forced Israel to release a large number of terrorists.
Yet, Hamas’s ‘victory’ over Israel may not be so straightforward. Hamas’s vital base in Damascus is now under threat, due to the uprising against the Assad regime in Syria.
It is this factor, Israeli security officials say, which drove Hamas politburo head Khaled Mashaal in Syria to order his military chief in Gaza, Ahmed Jabari, to take up a more flexible bargaining position.
Hamas’s newfound flexibility allowed Egypt to broker a historic deal, thereby increasing the likelihood that Hamas will be permitted to relocate from Damascus to Cairo should it need to do so.
These calculations led Hamas to agree to Israel’s demands that around 200 prisoners be banned from returning to the West Bank.
The condition satisfies Israel’s need to ensure that the released prisoners will not rejuvenate terrorist networks in areas that overlook central Israeli cities.
Fifty-five terrorists have been released to the West Bank and east Jerusalem, where they will be monitored around the clock by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the IDF. For that reason, ISA chief Yoram Cohen backed the arrangement and described it as manageable.
Most of the released inmates will remain in the Gaza Strip. The addition of hundreds of terrorists to Hamas’s ranks of 20,000 armed fighters in Gaza makes little overall strategic difference to Israel, Cohen stated.
Furthermore, while the exchange provides an obvious incentive for Hamas to continue kidnapping Israeli soldiers, Defense Minister Ehud Barak sent a signal recently saying that the era of successful Hamas ransom demands was drawing to an end.
He told Israel’s Channel 2 this week that a “life-loving country cannot continue” to release over 1000 prisoners, adding: “This slippery slope has to stop. A change is needed.”
As he spoke, a special government-appointed commission was in the midst of drawing up guidelines for future kidnap situations. Its conclusions will likely recommend placing a curb on the number of security prisoners that can be let go in future incidents.
Hamas’s strongest claim to victory comes in the form the blow it dealt to its secular rival, Fatah.
Hamas routinely belittles Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s reliance on diplomatic routes to pursue his goals. Only the force of arms is effective, Hamas argues. The jubilant images of Palestinian prisoners stepping off their buses as free men will likely convince many Palestinians that Hamas is right. Fatah played no role whatsoever in the release, a fact that will hurt its popularity among Palestinians.
For Hamas, the trade is an enormous public relations coup. It is a propaganda exercise aimed at neutralizing voices – both inside and outside of Gaza – who seek to portray Hamas as a deranged driver leading Palestinians down a road to endless and futile conflict.
Away from these regional implications, however, the Shalit affair has significantly strengthened the fabric of Israeli society.
Few issues have united public opinion in Israel more than the desire to see the soldier released, and the willingness to pay a high price for his freedom.
The Israeli public views the exchange as an affirmation of the unwritten national contract between the people and the army, which states that no soldiers can be left behind. The Jewish value of the sanctity of individual human lives also found expression, many Israelis believe.
Seventy-nine percent of the Israeli public backed the government’s decision to free Shalit, according to a recent Yedioth Ahronoth poll. It was this national sentiment that led Netanyahu to abandon past vows he gave in writing and in speech not to release large quantities of terrorists.
As such, the Shalit affair was also a victory for internal Israeli solidarity. This has strategic significance too, for domestic cohesion will be a key Israeli asset in facing down the future challenges that will surely come Israel’s way.
Yaakov Lappin, JINSA Visiting Fellow, is a journalist for the Jerusalem Post, where he covers police and national security affairs. For more information on the JINSA Visiting Fellows program, click here.