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World Jewish News
Israel was wrong to think time was on its side in Shalit talks
17.03.2009
Time and again Israel has found itself ensnared by its own trap. From the first prisoner-exchange deal signed with the Palestinian organizations, over forty years ago, Israel has been held hostage by the theory that "time is on its side."
This same pattern has repeated itself time after time, ever since an El Al plane was hijacked and forced to land in Algiers. It subsequently transpired in the 1970 deal reached over Metula guard Samuel Rosenwasser, in the 1978 deal involving Israel Defense Forces soldier Avraham Amram during Operation Litani, and in the exchange of thousands of Palestine Liberation Organization operatives for soldiers from the Nahal infantry brigade after the First Lebanon War.
It continued with the key and traumatic deal with Ahmed Jibril, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, during the failed negotiations for the release of missing IAF navigator Ron Arad. It was also evident in the various deals reached with Hezbollah, the most memorable of which was the affair involving retired IDF colonel Elhanan Tennenbaum and the return of abducted IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser's remains.
Negotiators change. On some occasions they are lawyers, on others they are former security establishment officials. But the method stays the same. Israel begins every negotiation with grandiose declarations, speaking in slogans such as "We will not bow down to terror," "We will not surrender to blackmail," and "The cost is too dear." The mantra is that releasing murderers only encourages more murder. The current negotiations with Hamas disprove yet another Israeli claim - that Israel does not talk to terrorists.
Israeli logic is dictated by the fear that the public will not accept a bad deal and is driven by the (erroneous) theory that a harder line at the talks' outset will enable the price of the deal to be lowered at their conclusion. The bitterest fruit borne by this theory was the negotiations to secure Ron Arad's release. The Israeli government (the Shamir-Peres-Rabin national unity coalition) thought that by driving a hard bargain it would reach a better deal with the the Amal militant organization, which held the navigator. The end of that story is well known and tragic.
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent
Источник: Haaretz
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