In a sea of ecstatic supporters dancing and singing outside the Schalit family
tent at midnight on Tuesday night, a somber Lea Schijveschuurder stood across
the street to remind the masses that Gilad Schalit’s release comes at a heavy
price.
Across from the tent, she held a sign that read, “The blood of my
parents is screaming in their grave.” Schijveschuurder’s parents and three
siblings were murdered in the terrorist attack at Sbarro in August
2001.
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asked as she stood opposite the Schalit tent and fended off arguments from
Schalit supporters. “For me, enough people have died.”
While it is still
unclear if the terrorists involved with the Sbarro attack will be on the list of
1,027
prisoners to be released, the Israeli public will grapple with
Schijveschuurder’s difficult question as preparations to bring Schalit home
begin.
“There will be a public argument – there will be an argument
between one pain and another pain,” said Shimshon Liebman, the head of the
Campaign to Free Gilad Schalit, early Wednesday morning as the crowds began to
thin out.
“We need to be courageous to pay a price and to stay
strong. One of our soldiers is worth much more than theirs
are. We’ll survive the appeals because at the end of the day the Jewish
morals are stronger than anything else for the people of Israel,” he
said.
The head of the Almagor Terror Victims Association, Meir Indor,
slammed the prisoner swap deal. “The Schalit family wins and the state loses,”
he said. “It’s a victory for terror and Hamas. We know from our experience that
hundreds of people will pay with future terrorist attacks, and that they’ll
organize more kidnappings.”
According to Almagor, since 2004, 183
Israelis have been killed in terror attacks carried out by terrorists who were
released from prison.
“How many will be killed for Schalit?” he asked,
before heading into a marathon of meetings to prepare appeals to the High Court
of Justice.
Indor accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of giving
into popular pressure, and trying to take away the focus from the social
protests from the summer, despite
denouncing the practice of prisoner exchanges
during his political career and in his book.
He denounced the government
for sending a clear message to terrorists: “Go ahead and do terror. Continue to
kill Jews. There’s no justice and no paying for it. It’s a revolving door and
the system of terror is working in Israel.”
Shalom Rahum, father of
terror victim Ofir Rahum, condemned on Wednesday the freeing of his son’s
murderer as part of the Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange that will see the release
of Gilad Schalit, according to Army Radio.
Amna Mouna, Ofir’s killer,
will be freed and sent abroad.
“We’re talking about scum of the earth
that will go back to terror,” Shalom said. “Even an appeal to the High Court
won’t help.”
But many terror victims supported the deal.
Kay
Wilson, who survived a terror attack last December which killed her friend
Christine Luken, said she cried with happiness when she heard that Gilad Schalit
was coming home. The trial of the terrorists who stabbed Luken to death and
severely wounded Wilson just started last month, so it is highly unlikely that
they will be included in the prisoner swap, because they have not yet been
sentenced.
Wilson said despite her support of the prisoner swap, she had
“very mixed feelings” if the men who had perpetrated the terror attack were
eventually released.
“I would feel that the country has done me a
personal injustice,” she said on Wednesday.
“On the other hand, there’s
justice for another family. It’s the stupid dilemma we live
with.”
“Emotionally, it’s healthier to celebrate life, rather than to get
stuck with loss,” Wilson said.
“Death is horrible, but there’s something
very redeeming about returning one of our own.”
She added that as a
survivor, she had a different perspective from people like Schijveschuurder, who
had lost multiple family members. Still, Wilson disagreed with the idea that the
country must weigh who is in more pain, the Schalit family or the victims of
terror.
“I don’t think you can ever compare pain because everyone’s
experience is subjective,” she said. “On the other hand, if you experience
death, it’s ghastly, but there is a closure.
It’s agony of waiting and
nonclosure and not knowing [of the Schalit family] that’s almost more horrendous
because they can’t get on with their life.”
Wilson said the thought of
eventually releasing terrorists who perpetrated the attack against her in a
future swap had plagued her since the news broke, but that she still supports
Aviva and Noam Schalit.
“Of course that’s a huge fear [of their eventual
release],” she said. “But I don’t think that if they weren’t released, we could
have stopped terrorism anyways. It’s like cutting the grass – you can get rid of
some, but it keeps growing back. It’s not like if you keep these people in
prison there’s not going to be terrorism; they’re breeding terrorists through
poverty and lack of education, and it’s a much more complex
problem.”
Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.