Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Israel known for concern for its captured soldiers

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 28, 2006

MITSPEH HILA, Israel -The fate of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, captured by Palestinian militants, has riveted the hearts and minds of Israelis. His face was plastered on newspapers, callers to talk shows prayed for his safety, and Israel bombed bridges in Gaza to hinder any effort to transfer Shalit elsewhere.

A poster-style graphic on two pages of the Yediot Ahronot daily carried the plea "Bring Gilad back," and his abduction was the top item on news broadcasts.

In the Maariv daily, political analyst Ben Caspit wrote: "The life of an Israeli soldier, with a picture, a smile, a hairdo, noble family, is hanging in the balance. A hairbreadth can separate between his life and a region-wide flare-up and a massive Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip."

Israel's concern for captive soldiers has been called its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Soldiers know they won't be left behind in the field, but emotions can prompt the government to bend its principle of refusing to negotiate with kidnappers:

- In January 2004, Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon agreed to exchange one Israeli civilian and the bodies of three abducted soldiers for 400 Palestinians, 23 Lebanese, five Syrians, three Moroccans, three Sudanese, one Libyan and one German. Fifty-nine Lebanese and the remains of Hezbollah guerrillas were included in the deal.

- In 1983 Israel freed 4,765 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for six soldiers held by the Fatah movement, then led by Yasser Arafat.

- In 1985, Israel released 1,150 Arab prisoners, almost all of them Palestinians, in exchange for three soldiers captured by Lebanese guerrillas in 1982. The freed prisoners played key roles in a Palestinian uprising that began in 1987.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has declared publicly that Israel would not negotiate or release Palestinian prisoners. But Cabinet minister Rafi Eitan said anything is possible.

"In the Middle East you have to be able to change your skin, to go from one extreme to the other, from A to Z, within a second," he told Army Radio. "If you are able to do this, you can win. If you can't do this, you should go home."

[Last modified June 28, 2006, 02:20:17]