Israel's cruel choices

Editorial

The story of Israel is the story of successive difficult decisions. Forced by history and geography to respond to incessant dilemmas, to use a gentle term, the country's leaders have been forced to choose regularly between distasteful options.

One of the most brutal of these choices was realized last week when, in exchange for the bodies of two Israel Defence Forces soldiers, Israel delivered to Lebanon Samir Kuntar, a participant in one of Israel's most heartbreaking terrorist incidents, four other prisoners and 199 exhumed bodies of Lebanese terrorists.

In exchange, Israel received the lifeless remains of Sgt. 1st Class Ehud Goldwasser and Staff Sgt. Eldad Regev, two Israeli reservists – part-time soldiers and full-time students – whose kidnapping sparked the summer 2006 Lebanon War. For two years, Lebanon has refused to confirm whether the two were alive or dead, leaving the families and the nation in an emotional limbo.

The IDF has an admirable policy of doing all it can to patriate the remains of soldiers, a guiding principle whose roots lie in the humanity of Judaism and the conviction that respect for human remains is evidence of respect for life itself. There has been a debate in the past, and it is now as vigorous as it has ever been, over whether this imperative – an intangible value – is worth the tangible potential brought on by freeing bloody-handed murderers, to say nothing of the encouragement such trades may give to future perpetrators. But that debate is for Israelis to have, and it is not for Diaspora Jews to second-guess.

As Israel mourned the loss of its young men – and relived the horrific circumstances of the monstrous crime that led to Kuntar's imprisonment – Lebanon rejoiced, welcoming the murderer home as a prodigal hero. This incident puts into the starkest relief imaginable, again, the moral chasm between Zionism and its enemies.

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