I advocate the historical Zionist response of further settlement in response to a savage crime.
By AMIEL UNGARSchoolmates mourn at the funerals in Modi’in, July 1, of three Israeli teenagers, who were abducted and killed in the southern West Bank(photo credit: FINBARR O'REILLY / REUTERS)
Before the bodies of Eyal Yifrah, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel, the three Israeli teens abducted and murdered in Judea in mid-June, were discovered, I was asked to write about a hypothetical ransom deal under which Israel would release a boatload of convicted terrorists in exchange for the release of the trio. As a few years back I had argued on these pages against paying an exorbitant ransom for Gilad Shalit, this essentially would have been an exercise in repetition. Either the editor forgot the previous piece or perhaps wondered if the identity of the victims would prompt a reevaluation.Our rabbis warn us not to judge your friend until you have been in his position. This time the abductees were religious Zionists; two were studying at the yeshiva high school from which my son had graduated and whose headmaster, Rabbi Dov Zinger, I have been fortunate to count as a friend and neighbor for 32 years. Would religious Zionists under these circumstances have succumbed to the rationalization that trading three captives for 1,000 terrorists somehow represents a victory for Israeli morality rather than a triumph for the enemy?Now, tragically, we won’t know the answer, although I hope we would have adhered to our principles. While the parents would have been entitled to take any measure to rescue their children, our duty would have been to stiffen the Israeli government’s resolve to refuse a lopsided deal, rather than pressuring it into making one.Since the Shalit deal, our enemies have repeatedly declared that kidnapping is the optimal strategy for freeing their convicted felons and have done their best to implement it. Before conceding failure in losing the three boys, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) had thwarted 50 other kidnapping attempts over the past year. Furthermore, the prediction that many of the released gunmen would revert to terror was tragically proven on Passover eve when senior police officer Baruch Mizrahi was murdered by one of the terrorists released in the Shalit deal. The old pattern must stop.The government, to its credit, took an important first step by rearresting some Hamas members released in the Shalit deal. Instead of securing the release of Hamas prisoners, the kidnapping, at least temporarily, resulted in the return of Hamas members to prison to serve out the remainder of their sentences.Israeli prisons, however, are not Guantanamo.Prisoners maintain contact with their families and their lawyers, and some even pursue a college degree while in jail. Additionally the families of prisoners are well compensated by the Palestinian Authority, which uses donor assistance to provide them with a monthly stipend.Most importantly, as long as the other side remains convinced that Israel will always eventually cave in in a hostage situation, the incentive to abduct will remain.From the Israeli left came the suggestion that we should cling ever more tightly to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. It was Abbas, however, who established a unity government with Hamas. Rewarding Abbas for Hamas cruelty would in effect restore the good cop-bad cop scam that Yasser Arafat played to perfection. It would also nurture the illusion that the difference between Fatah and Hamas is more than tactical.I therefore join other Israeli nationalists in advocating the historical Zionist response of further settlement in response to a savage crime. By forcing the adversary to confront the idea that killing Jewish teens will not cause Israel to flee the area but rather strengthen the Jewish presence, we rebuild deterrence. I know that this idea is counterintuitive to those who believe that the Arab side should never have to pay a permanent penalty for its actions. But it offers the only hope of instilling in the Arab side a sense of realism and responsibility.For the Jewish side, it is the most effective form of vengeance and it undercuts those who favor baser, more violent forms of retaliation.Contributor Amiel Ungar is also a columnist for the Hebrew weekly Besheva
