It s one of those days when a lot of people are probably looking at the Middle East and scratching their heads. The Israelis have released Samir Qantar, who committed a terrible atrocity, along with four others who are defined as terrorists to Hezbollah – which Israel defines as a terrorist organization. And all of this in exchange for two dead bodies. What s going on?
I suggest there are three things worth looking at here.
The first is that this brings some kind of closure to the Lebanon war fought over a period of 33 days exactly two years ago. According to the Hezbollah narrative, the raid across the Israeli border on July 12, 2006, and the taking of the two soldiers – Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev – was initiated in the first place in order to gain new leverage for the release of Qantar.
Israel had been due to free Qantar as part of a previous prisoner exchange, the Tenenbaum deal, in 2003, although according to the Israelis Hezbollah had reneged on its commitment to provide new information on the fate of missing airman Ron Arad (whose plane crashed over Lebanon in 1986). This has led some security officials in Israel to argue that Samir Qantar is more of a headache than an asset and that his release would reduce Hezbollah s incentive to conduct similar hostage takings in the future – a case of keeping him captive being more bother than it was worth.
The 2006 war was mishandled on all sides. Hezbollah s leader Hassan Nasrallah has publicly stated that had he anticipated the severity of the Israeli response, Hezbollah would not have conducted the cross border raid. Israel s governing coalition has remained shaky ever since this war, which damaged its reputation (having failed to secure its stated goals) and which led to a committee of inquiry and to the resignation of the then-defence minister and IDF chief of staff. Only last week did Israel realize what it declared it set out to achieve by launching the war: namely, the return of the two soldiers.
Secondly, the deal provides a window into an aspect Israeli society not always on view and that has to be understood in order to make any sense of last week s events. The prisoner exchange deal was not about the crisis that has enveloped Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the recent investigations surrounding him. It will come as a surprise to many that the deal also met with only muted criticism from the right-wing opposition.
More than anything, this is about the Israel that is still a small community, in which the stories of one or two families can touch virtually every citizen. Israel is a country of only seven million. It has a conscript army that prides itself on being the people s army, and there exists a strong sense that the state is responsible for returning home, in whatever condition, any citizen that it has sent to the battlefield.
To be clear, Israelis are not celebrating. Most Israelis probably find the deal both sickening and necessary – something that had to be done for the families, Goldwasser and Regev. Many may see this as excessive sentimentalism and a weakness of Israeli society. The opposite argument though carries much and perhaps more weight-that this kind of social and communal solidarity, of which the willingness to make such a deal is an expression, is actually a core strength of Israeli society, especially as it continues to demand service and sacrifice of its citizenry (and that s even to those of us who consider much of the sacrifice to be an unnecessary by-product of the occupation).
Thirdly and finally, the deal also gives us a window into Lebanon. The celebrations and festivities surrounding the release of someone who committed such an ugly crime, and of no moral or previous political standing, make for unpleasant viewing well beyond Israel s borders. Yet a response that says a plague on all of the Lebanese for celebrating would be very out of place. So too would an analysis that exaggerates the extent to which this strengthens Hezbollah.
Some Lebanese no doubt felt coerced into celebrating last week. For others it was simply an opportunity to vent their anger and frustration at previous Israeli incursions into Lebanon, at the 18-year occupation of the south and at the destruction and havoc wrought by the military campaign in 2006. And no, none of that justifies Qantar s crimes or him being hailed as a hero.
There is another, less obvious way in which the prisoner exchange may present challenges to Hezbollah in the medium term, even if it s a short-term boon. For Hezbollah to credibly maintain its arms and resistance posture, it needs a justification that resonates with the Lebanese agenda. The prisoners were part of that explanation. What remains now is the disputed and tiny territory of the Shebaa Farms under Israeli control. As the pretexts are removed, Hezbollah is faced with an increasingly naked challenge: Why does it not fully integrate into Lebanese politics, and can it legitimately claims to serve a Lebanese-wide interest? It would be wise to resolve the Shebaa issue, thus prodding Hezbollah into a more definitive choice between bullets and the ballot-box.
Where does all this leave us? For certain families there are mourning rituals, for others festive celebrations. Beyond that, three developments from the last weeks have all helped move this corner of the Middle East toward a more stable if still fragile equilibrium: the Lebanese, with Qatari assistance, have brokered an internal political power-sharing arrangement, and the new national unity government was just sworn in; Israel and Syria have been conducting proximity talks – peace negotiations with Turkish mediation; and in Paris last week, Syria and Lebanon agreed to exchange ambassadors.
There is still a long way to go to achieve tranquility in the triangular border region between Syria, Israel and Lebanon. But those steps and even the somber prisoner exchange might help move things in the right direction.
Daniel Levywas an advisor in the Israeli Prime Minister s Office, a member of the official Israeli negotiating team at the Oslo B and Taba talks and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative. This article first appeared in The Guardian and is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
