The Gilad Shalit debate

As Tanya has been sharing with us, the controversy around Gilad Shalit is a constant and heated one across this country: Is Israel, in accordance with Hamas' demands, to turn over hundreds of Palestinian terrorists/murderers in exchange for one 22-year-old Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas in summer of 06? (see related bumper stickers and banner above) The debate highlights the challenge of being a country that advocates a strict policy of: "no soldier left behind: protect each of our children at all costs" fighting a number of enemies in which the value is: "kill at all costs." I found a translation of an op-ed in Ha-Aretz a week ago in which an Israeli foundation director involved with psychiatric rehab (as well as the mother of a son currently doing his army service) agonizes over which she would prefer: her son killed or her son kidnapped and tortured. It represents one side of an impossible dilemma. Here's the conclusion:

It is not natural for parents to send their child to war. Given a choice, they would never do it. But since they find themselves in a situation where there is no choice, they must be sure that the Government and IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will act like any parent would have acted. Therefore, the Government and IDF have to do everything in their power to bring back a soldier who has been taken captive. The question of price is irrelevant. Calculations of cost-benefit are irrelevant. If these were to determine our decisions, we would not have gone to war in Gaza in the first place. We knew that we would pay a high price. We were willing to pay even a higher price than in the end was demanded of us.

Releasing terrorists who have "blood on their hands" may lead to additional cost of lives. But life is not an equation of numbers only. In the complicated and difficult reality we live in, we need to do everything to preserve and strengthen the values that are the very basis of our existence: sanctifying life and humanity that characterize the Israeli society. We must bring back captive soldiers because we can not allow ourselves to become a society in which a mother prefers the death of her son upon his being taken into captivity.

This is incomprehensible, but it’s the situation in the State of Israel. It is incomprehensible and mostly inhuman. And if we are not human, we will not be who we are – Israel with all its complexities, all its problems, but also all its beauty, and especially all its deep-rooted and fully established humanity. And if we are not who we are and what we are, why are we sending our sons to war?