The first stage in the Israeli-Palestinian prisoner exchange deal related to long-held Israeli POW Gilad Shalit took place today, with the exchange of 19 Palestinian women prisoners for a two-minute video of Shalit, that showed him apparently well, and well treated.
This exchange is a ‘first payment’ by each side on a deal that is expected to eventually involve Shalit’s return to his family in Israel and Israel’s return to their families of some 1,000 of the 11,000 or so Palestinian political prisoners it currently holds, the vast majority of them noncombatants, most of whom have never had anything even resembling a fair trial.
Ma’an reports that Mahmoud Abbas, the time-expired president of the Palestinian Interim Authority, vowed today “to continue efforts toward releasing every prisoner who has spent decades in Israeli jails.”
This is fairly pathetic. Everyone in Palestine (and elsewhere) knows that Abbas played no role whatever in the negotiations, which have been conducted between the elected Hamas leadership in Gaza and the Israeli government, using Egypt and Germany as intermediaries.
Maan reported from Gaza that the elected PIA prime minister Ismail Haniyeh
- said the swap was ‘a victory for the resistance and the Palestinian will,’ adding that it ‘opened the door for a respectable deal.’
… Haniyeh also praised Egypt and Germany for their collective role in wrapping up the deal…
The Gaza leader said the Islamic movement had handled the exchange in a way that put national interests first, by demanding that women and girls affiliated with various factions be released rather than just Hamas.
Two things occur to me. First, that Germany’s fairly recent involvement in the prisoner exchange negotiations seems to have added some good momentum to the effort. Egypt had been doing the mediating all alone ever since Shalit was captured in June 2006, and hadn’t achieved anything. Germany has long experience of the many small steps involved in such negotiations– dating back to when German mediators orchestrated complex swaps of spies from both sides during the Cold War in Europe.
More recently, German mediators organized the several big swaps of live prisoners and human remains carried out between Israel and Hizbullah over recent years.
I imagine that the Egyptian authorities could have been as successful as the German if they’d really wanted to. But they never really did. So it was interesting that in the end the Israelis agreed to involve the Germans as well.
The second thought that occurs to me is that the Shalit-related prisoner-swap process should, hopefully, proceed through at least one further step, and may involve more than one further step. Some reports, for example, speak of a step whereby Shalit gets released to the egyptians and a further one when he gets sent home to Israel.
But anyway, throughout this whole period, the Hamas negotiators will be getting a lot of attention in the region and beyond; and among Palestinians and other Arabs the vast preponderance of that attention will almost certainly be favorable… And all that Abbas can do, meanwhile, is stand on the sidelines.
Not good for his political standing.
Several other things have been denting his standing badly recently, as well. Including the humiliating decision he took to participate in the three-way with Netanyahu last week (even though Israel’s settlement construction continues apace)– and equally humiliating decision his people made yesterday to drop its request that the UN Human Rights Council refer the Goldstone Report to the Security Council.
And what thin air do you pull the knowledge that Shalit was well treated? Because he said so? Or your Hamas friends?
As for the next steps, what do you have in mind, swapping his underwear for 100 terrorists? A letter for 500 hundred?
Then you complain about proportionality when talking about casualties. It is a two way street. I cannot recall any live soldier being swapped with any terrorist organization, and to think that Hamas will return a live one assumes an immense price and an invitation to kidnap the next one. Not an easy choice. On this topic I admit that the Britons have the stoicism to suffer in private for the benefit of the whole, they showed that in WWII and I recall also during the first Gulf War. Hats off to the British folks on that, Israel’s posture is rather weak.
One thing that should occur to you is that the holding of Shalit -where no access is granted to the Red Cross and without even information as to his status, living or dead, until very recently – is illegal under international law.
I’m rather surprised that you don’t mention this, since you care about human rights and international law and all. What would you do if Israel did the same thing? `
“the holding of Shalit -where no access is granted to the Red Cross…is illegal under international law.”
Mr. Pot, allow me to introduce Mr. Kettle, the fellow about whom you are so bitterly complaining. You and he have a great deal in common to talk about.
Howard, Hamas has passed on good validation of Shalit’s status as living before now. But yes, there are aspects of his captivity that violate IHL.
And then, there is Israel…. which violates IHL massively and continuously in the occupied territories, not only in its detentions policy but also in its implantation of illegal settlements, its building of the Wall, its imposition of massive and very harmful collective punishment on the peoples of Gaza, East Jerusalem, the rest of the West bank, and Golan.
And Israel does this, moreover, with the support of my tax dollars and my government’s political and military support.
All these violations should end. So for American citizens concerned about upholding IHL, what is our prime responsibility?
I support a complete embargo on my government providing aid of any sort to anyone in that region who violates IHL.
And you?