The Media Line Olmert as King Solomon

The biblical tale tells of two women who came to the Israelite king, Solomon, both claiming to be the mother of a babe in arms. “Then the king said, ‘bring me a sword.’ So they brought a sword for the king. He then gave an order: ‘Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.’ The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, ‘Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!’ But the other said, ‘neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!’”

Solomon’s wisdom was the substance that Israel’s premier, Ehud Olmert, needed this week as he chaired the cabinet meeting that determined the fate of two soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah two years ago, an act that led to the war between Israel and Hizbullah. “Every week at the cabinet meeting, sensitive and important issues arise that determine the daily life and quality of life in the State of Israel, and sometimes even life itself,” Olmert told his ministerial colleagues and the world’s media as the cabinet session began. “Even in the routine context of the importance of cabinet discussions, there is no doubt that today’s discussion is very special, exceptionally sensitive and perhaps has deep national-moral consequences that are not typical of the important discussions held around the Cabinet table.”

As the politicians began their marathon session a small group of people gathered outside the Prime Minister’s Office awaiting its outcome. Central among them were the immediate families of the kidnapped soldiers – Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

Asked how every-day life has been these past 719 days, Goldwasser’s mother, Miki, sums it up in a single word: “hell.”

On Sunday the politicians decided to bring that hell to an end – for better or for worse.

The working assumption has been for some time that one or both of the soldiers were killed during the gun battle on the Lebanon border when they were captured by Hizbullah fighters. Now that Hizbullah is seemingly not asking for the release on hundreds of prisoners in exchange for the pair, Jerusalem is more convinced than ever that both are dead.

This has led to fierce debate in Israeli society as to the rights and wrongs of a prisoner exchange. Were Goldwasser and Regev still alive there is wall-to wall agreement in Israel that pretty much any price would be worth paying for their release. However, many argue that it is wrong to free convicted murderers from Israeli jails in order to allow the remains of the two to be interred at home. Among those objecting to the deal are the heads of Israel’s security services.

They remain opposed to the release of one Samir Quntar in exchange for the soldiers. Quntar is serving a life sentence after perpetrating what Israelis say is one of the country’s most chilling terror attacks. On April 22nd 1979, Quntar entered Israel with three Lebanese companions on a dinghy and landed on the beach of Nahariyah, a coastal town in northern Israel.

Around midnight, after killing a police office on the beach, the terrorists burst into a residential building using gunfire and grenades. The Haran family – Smadar and Danny with their two daughters aged 4 and 2 were in their apartment.

Smadar Haran gave her personal account of the story to the Washington Post in May 2003 in connection to the person who orchestrated the attack, Lebanese terrorist Abu ‘Abbas.

As the terrorists stormed into the building, Haran’s husband, Danny, raced out of the apartment with their older daughter seeking shelter. Smadar hid in a closet with the younger daughter covering the infant’s mouth with her hand so as not to reveal the hideout to the terrorists, who were meanwhile raging about the apartment hunting for them.

Danny and his daughter Einat were captured. Eyewitnesses said later the terrorists took them to the beach where they shot Danny in the head and then smashed the four-year-old’s skull with a rifle butt, Haran recalled.

Two of the terrorists were killed. The other two were arrested – one of them was Samir Quntar.

Smadar was later rescued from the hideout, but by then she had accidentally smothered her daughter to death.

The aim of the attack, Haran explained, and as later confirmed by the terrorists’ dispatcher, was to protest against the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.

Quntar’s name has been linked to other terror attacks such as the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985. Quntar was one of 50 prisoners whom the hijackers demanded Israel release. That incident gained world-wide media coverage after the terrorists threw American tourist Leon Klinghoffer off the ship in his wheelchair.

“We’re dealing with much more than one criminal, Samir Quntar,” says Goldwasser’s father, Shlomo. “We’re talking about values that are very important to Israeli youngsters who are going into the army." This is arguably the key point made by the families of the kidnapped. They have repeatedly said over the last two years that even if all that remains are the bones of their loved ones the Israeli government and military must do all in their power to bring them home. The issue already threatens army morale. Recent conscripts and veteran soldiers tell The Media Line that it is commonplace for troops to maintain the belief that if captured, little will be done to obtain their freedom.

The push for the return of Goldwasser and Regev at whatever cost cannot be seen in the isolation of Israel’s battle with its neighbor to the north and the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hizbullah. The Olmert government is also attempting to secure the release after two years in captivity of Gilad Shalit, a soldier captured by Hamas and held in the Gaza Strip.

The negotiations are running concurrently with Hizbullah and Hamas. While The Media Line’s Ramallah correspondent says the two are not directly linked, he adds Hamas is watching the Hizbullah deal with keen interest.

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04/25/2024

The parents of Shalit on the one hand and Goldwasser and Regev on the other, knowingly or otherwise, have been engaged in a battle of their own, trying to make sure that their case is seen as top priority.

That has left Olmert and his negotiators with a huge headache. They have had to deal with both Hamas and Hizbullah at the same time, attempting to secure the freedom of all three soldiers, while averting a possible war to the north and pushing for a truce with Hamas and countless other armed factions in Gaza.

“At the end of the day we’re talking about my little brother,” says Ofer Regev. “After two years of not knowing, it’s a terrible feeling.”

Olmert, himself beset by personal problems, has had to act like Solomon for two years, determining the fate of children, with parents beseeching him to make “the right choice.”

The nature of that decision was summed up by Olmert as he asked his ministers to look into their minds and souls as they voted on the Hizbullah deal: “In the end, we are the ministers who bear the supreme, collective responsibility for government decisions and we will need to bear this responsibility in such a way that we will be able to look in the eyes of the members of the families, and in the eyes of every citizen of the State of Israel, and mainly so that we will be able to face our own consciences and say that our consciences were clean at the time we made these critical decisions.”