Subscribe to Print Edition | Tue., November 25, 2008 Cheshvan 27, 5769 | | Israel Time: 22:31 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
Haaretz Toolbar
Diplomacy
Defense Jewish World Opinion National
Print Edition
Car Rental
Books Haaretz Magazine Business Real Estate GA 2008 Travel Week's End Anglo File
Last update - 00:00 04/09/2006
Free the monster Samir Kuntar
By Bradley Burston

Samir Kuntar is a monster. He may never have deserved a life.

It's time we let him out of prison.

Not for his sake. For ours.
Advertisement
For the sake of three families.

In ways that cannot be counted, most of which went unnoticed by the media and the world, the one institution that got Israel through the war was the family.

The family may be the one thing Israel has ever gotten right.

It is surely the one thing that saves Israel from itself.

It may be the only thing that matters.

It was families that gave shelter, food, and support to thousands of Israelis in the north routed from their homes by Katyusha rockets. It was families that gave their soldier children, soldier spouses, soldier brothers and sisters, soldier fathers and even grandfathers, the strength to keep on, despite their betrayal by the befuddlement of their government and their generals.

Before the war began, young men from three of these families were patrolling Israel's borders, Israel's pre-1967 war borders, on Israeli soil, when gunmen from Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, invaded and took them hostage.

We owe it to their families to get them back. We owe it to their brothers in arms, as well, to do everything it takes to get them back. Soldiers and their families have to know that their leaders will risk their very political careers, if need be, to pay the price to get them back.

The price will be awful. The price to families will be awful. In the case of Gilad Shalit, kidnapped on June 25, the price may be 1,000 or more Palestinian prisoners, some guilty of having tried to murder Israelis, some perhaps guilty of having succeeded. The families of Israeli victims of terrorism will fall victim to a new phase of torture.

In the case of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, abducted by Hezbollah on July 12, the price will be even worse. It will include the release of Samir Kuntar. In 1979, Kuntar led a group of gunmen on an attack in Nahariya, during which broke into an apartment and took hostage Danny Haran, 28, and his four-year-old daughter, Einat.

"I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades," Danny's wife, Smadar, wrote three years ago in an account in the Washington Post, describing in part how she hid from the terrorists with her other daughter, Yael, just two.

"I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

"As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

"By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her."

Samir Kuntar is our hostage. His release will do great injury to all those who loved and love Danny and Einat Haran. But it's time that he be released.

It's a moral issue pitting families against families. But we cannot ignore the families of the living, and of the living themselves.

Last week, in response to the direct appeals of the families of Gilad, Ehud, and Eldad, Israelis by the tens of thousands flooded the heart of Tel Aviv to appeal to the Ehud Olmert to do everything he could to secure their release.

There had never been a demonstration like it. The rally brought together the activist right and left, the solid center, the secular hip, the settler religious, the haredi, the elderly, the newborn in a sling, the Shenkenite, the professor, the frecha, the arss.

In the end, it will be pressure from families, from Palestinian families, from Lebanese families, from Syrian families, from Israelis families, that will turn the tide in favor of peace in this region.

This is our fate, our curse, and, perhaps, our only hope: The structures of Israel, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority may bear the trappings of modern government, but they remain fundamentally tribal societies.

In the West, allegiance to the concept of the nation is the bedrock on which society is built. But for Israelis, for Palestinians, and for Lebanese as well - even for the nouveau hippies among them , the family is the cornerstone of society. It is the strength and primary allegiance of all segments of the population, to an extent that cannot be comprehended in the West.

Anchor of the young and buoy of the old, the family is the primary forge of political orientation. The family itself is the court of public opinion.

The influence of the family is such that it can dehumanize the other side, demonize it into caricature, enshrine revenge into sacred responsibility. But it can also serve as a bridge, suggesting that there are mothers on both sides who deserve to see their children live out their lives in peace.

Leaders will only end war if they are convinced that their constituents demand it. They will only make peace if they are convinced that families of the living care more about the living than they do about exacting pain on the other side.

Of all the issues in the Mideast thicket, normalization of relations, determination of borders, sovereignty of holy sites, freezing of settlements, the element that receives the least world attention is that of prisoners. Yet the issue is of paramount importance to large numbers of Palestinians and Lebanese, whose families love their imprisoned sons, daughters, and fathers no less than we do ours.

The issue must be of paramount importance for us as well.

Samir Kuntar is a monster. He may never have deserved a life.

But Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev do. So do their families.

Free the monster. Let them live.

______________________________


Previous blogs:

If Israel had only a year to live
Nasrallah for Prime Minister - of Israel
Will Bush make Iran the only superpower?
Is that an Islamo-Nazi under the bed, or is it a Zio-Nazi?

Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
Spy chain
Iran: We smashed espionage network linked to Israel.
Poultry dilemma
Will U.S. Jews have kosher Turkey this Thanksgiving?
  1.   Send him to Europe for guarranteed immunity and safety 13:17  |  PETER. S.M 04/09/06
  2.   1Nice man: Kllers and murderers just on one side 13:40  |  KUTW 04/09/06
  3.   What Israel should do 13:43  |  KUTW 04/09/06
  4.   Every prisoner in the Israeli jails will be Sameer Kuntar 13:47  |  Romario 04/09/06
  5.   Samir Kuntar............ 14:31  |  Bill Pearlman 04/09/06
  6.   NEVER Free Kuntar- Or The Other Terrorist Murderers 14:33  |  Yishai Kohen 04/09/06
  7.   SAMIR KUNTAR 14:34  |  Rich 04/09/06
  8.   Israel`s pre-67 borders???????? 14:40  |  Ruth Gold 04/09/06
  9.   #2 To Maral- I guess you mean me. 15:04  |  Yonatan Netser 04/09/06
  10.   Castrate Kuntar - post his genitals to Nasralla as warning! 15:04  |  Simple solution Guy 04/09/06
  11.   15.Tim RoseNot propaganda but real facts 15:14  |  KUTW 04/09/06
  12.   T.ROSEThe IDF soldiers looked the child in its eyes and strangled 15:17  |  PETER SM 04/09/06
  13.   We need to speak their language 15:20  |  Dr Dolittle 04/09/06
  14.   NO STUPID-FREE A MURDERER ENCOURAGE MORE 15:23  |  Dr David Gross 04/09/06
  15.   WALID.IDF pilots bomb terrorists using human shields 15:25  |  PETER SM 04/09/06
  16.   I have a question to some of you; would you be able to bash 15:25  |  Judith 04/09/06
  17.   Take a good look at your fans, Bradley 15:32  |  Roscio 04/09/06
  18.   Kuntar and Haaretz 15:55  |  Dr. Allan 04/09/06
  19.   To Vladimir 16:04  |  Yaron 04/09/06
  20.   # 9 KUTW. What Israel should do 16:07  |  Kathy 04/09/06
  21.   Tim Rose 16:19  |  Boris 04/09/06
  22.   To Vladimir II 16:19  |  Yaron 04/09/06
  23.   # 7 Walid. YOUR TWISTED LOGIC,,,,,, 16:24  |  Kathy 04/09/06
  24.   whatever 16:27  |  me 04/09/06
  25.   #15 Tim- You Got The Story Wrong 16:31  |  Yonatan Netser 04/09/06
  26.   To # 20, Yaron 16:36  |  Kiril 04/09/06
  27.   Execute Terrorists 16:37  |  Piranha 04/09/06
  28.   I`m sure he did not do it on purpose! 16:40  |  confused 04/09/06
  29.   Samir Kuntar does not deserve a life, should not be freed. 16:45  |  omolll 04/09/06
  30.   Kontar 16:47  |  peace lover 04/09/06
  31.   Maral#2 16:48  |  Yariv 04/09/06
  32.   DEAR MARAL 16:49  |  Jonathan 04/09/06
  33.   # 11 Bill Pearlman. re: Samir Kuntar. 16:51  |  Kathy 04/09/06
  34.   In now way is he a "hostage" 16:56  |  MCQueen 04/09/06
  35.   Award Kuntar the Israel Prize too 17:06  |  Herbert Kaine 04/09/06
  36.   Samir Kuntar and the IDF and IAF 17:17  |  Lubnani Yehudi 04/09/06
  37.   Vladimir 17:28  |  Yaron 04/09/06
  38.   Lebanese & Palestinian babies? 17:31  |  Lee 04/09/06
  39.   Never 17:35  |  Danite 04/09/06
  40.   T.ROSE"The IDF soldiers looked the child in its eyes and strangle 17:55  |  PETER SM 04/09/06
  41.   Monsters amidst us; part 1 18:05  |  a realist 04/09/06
  42.   Why not? 18:12  |  JFivel 04/09/06
  43.   10Romario: so you admit all of them are murderous terrorists 18:15  |  KUTW 04/09/06
  44.   Blindman 18:16  |  Reda 04/09/06
  45.   21. Christian: Neither does Nizbollah 18:18  |  KUTW 04/09/06
  46.   Monsters amidst us; part 2 18:19  |  a realist 04/09/06
  47.   Kuntar and Moral Equivalence 18:21  |  Marc 04/09/06
  48.   Piranha # 28 18:40  |  Salam 04/09/06
  49.   a rose by any other name would stench as foul 18:53  |  Ari ben Yisrael 04/09/06
  50.   for yonatan netser 19:07  |  confused 04/09/06
  51.   Burston, typical left winger 19:08  |  Curious 04/09/06
  52.   yaron, #20, 23 19:10  |  vladimir 04/09/06
  53.   Brave Bradley Burston 19:19  |  Tony Anthony 04/09/06
  54.   free kuntar then hope real hard that he gets into an accident 19:26  |  paul 04/09/06
  55.   NOT ONLY THREE FAMILIES 19:35  |  Worley 04/09/06
  56.   Its not about number: Kuntar is a monster since he did it for fun 19:46  |  AA 04/09/06
  57.   Give them back all their rotten to the core criminals 19:46  |  Nechama 04/09/06
  58.   Then Yishal Kohen, perhaps you would volunteer 19:57  |  Mark Lincoln 04/09/06
  59.   if we release the beast 20:00  |  edward gibbon 04/09/06
  60.   I have an alternative plan, Bradley 20:03  |  Greg 04/09/06
  61.   29 confused : He did it on purpose 20:08  |  KUTW 04/09/06
  62.   The trivial case of Kuntar 20:28  |  David ben Avigdor 04/09/06
  63.   More disproportionate, nay cultish, thinking 20:42  |  Hannah 04/09/06
  64.   Free the Monster 20:53  |  Dan 04/09/06
  65.   to confused#29 20:55  |  Sabra 04/09/06
  66.   What about the families of future abductees? 20:57  |  Saul 04/09/06
  67.   Has Burston blown a gasket ? 21:10  |  Sean 04/09/06
  68.   Herr Lincoln`s Excellent Point 21:17  |  Abe Sarousi 04/09/06