by Benji Preminger
Gilad Shalit is exactly one month older than I am. He grew up in a town two hours north of where I grew up, and he was drafted to the IDF around the same time I was. But there our stories diverge. Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas almost exactly five years ago and has been held in captivity ever since. Throughout his captivity, he has been denied visitation from the Red Cross and other international organizations, a striking violation of international law.
For the past five years, Shalit’s family has been running an organized campaign which seeks to finalize a prisoner exchange deal to bring back their lost son. Last week, I traveled to Jerusalem to the family’s weekly demonstration outside the Israeli Cabinet’s weekly meeting.
At the scene were around twenty activists, including Gilad’s parents, Noam and Aviva Shalit. It’s hard to imagine the kind of life they’ve been living since that fateful day in June 2006. They have quit their jobs and have been investing all their time and effort in bringing their son safely home. Their personal suffering has been made all too public, and they have been forced to play the media game in an effort to release their son.
The demonstration focused on reminding the ministers and parliamentarians who pass by in their bullet-proof cars that Gilad is still alive, and imploring them to push Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign the deal and bring Gilad home. In the three hours that we stood outside under the blazing Mediterranean sun, only three government officials stopped and talked to Shalit’s parents: Minister of Justice Yaakov Neeman, Minister Michael Eitan and Agriculture Minister Orit Noked.
Hamas, the organization governing the Gaza Strip (considered a terrorist organization by the US government) has stipulated the terms for a prisoner exchange deal: 1000 prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier. Though the Israeli government at first denied any negotiations with terrorists, it has since agreed to negotiate the terms of the deal, but to no avail. Hamas remains adamant in its demands, and Israel is faced with a moral and practical dilemma: how many terrorists (some of whom are directly responsible to the deaths of many innocent lives) should it release in exchange for one Israeli? Should it even release any, given the risk that many may return to their nefarious ways and kill more people?
There are no simple answers, but with increasing public support to release the thousand Hamas prisoners and the support of many former heads of Israeli security agencies (Mossad and the Shin-Bet), who agree that there is more to be gained by bringing Gilad home, I can only hope that this coming August, Gilad will be home and celebrating his 25th birthday with his family.
Till then, my thoughts lie with the Shalit family and, most importantly, with Gilad Shalit, my brother, who’s been in captivity for 1836 days.
May he return to us, safe, sound, and soon.