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January 30, 2004/Shevat 7 5764, Vol. 56, No. 19
Hezbollah engages in prisoner-swap
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - The debate in Israel over this week's prisoner-exchange deal with Hezbollah is not the first time a swap deal has roiled the Jewish state.
Considering Sheik Hassan Nasrallah's pledge that Hezbollah would kidnap more Israelis, this debate might not be the last.
On Jan. 22, Israel was slated to receive Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah in October 2000 in exchange for some 435 Arab security prisoners.
Many Israelis are con-cerned that the Lebanon-based Islamic group would be encouraged to kidnap more Israelis to secure the release of more prisoners and to strengthen its image as a David winning battles against a Goliath.
"The key issue is what will happen with the terrorists that we release," Moshe Arens, a former defense minister and foreign minister, told JTA. "If we know for sure that as a result of this deal 10 Israelis will be killed, we probably would not have agreed to it. I, for one, would have opposed it."
Even before the swap, there were indications that one prisoner in particular would try to murder again.
Steven Josef Smyrek, a German native who converted to Islam and was jailed after coming to Israel on a Hez-bollah suicide mission in 1997, plans to rejoin the Lebanese militia upon his release, according to a German journa-list who interviewed him.
Despite his present position, Arens was among the ministers who supported a past prisoner-swap deal, called the Jibril deal.
On May 20, 1985, some 1,150 Palestinians were traded for three Israelis soldiers - Hezi Shai, Yosef Groff and Nissim Salem - who were captured in Lebanon and held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, led by Ahmed Jibril.
Unfortunately, most of the released prisoners returned to their homes in the West Bank and Gaza and two years later became some of the foot soldiers in the first intifada.
In the long history of Israel's armed conflict with the Arab world, Israel always has paid a heavy price in prisoner-exchange deals.
For example, at the end of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel released 6,708 Arab soldiers and civilians in exchange for a handful of Israeli prisoners and the bodies of fallen Israeli soldiers.
However, as long as the deal was with legitimate govern-ments at the end of a "regular'' war, there was no moral dilemma.
The dilemmas began only when the terrorist organi-zations began capturing Israeli soldiers and holding them as bargaining chips.
Since 1983, there have been eight prisoner exchanges, and the latest is among the most controversial.
The Israeli soldiers in the deal - Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Souad - were on a patrol mission along Israel's border with Lebanon on Oct. 7, 2000, when they were ambushed by Hezbollah gunmen dressed as U.N. observers.
Tannenbaum, the only Israeli captive in the current deal who is known to be alive, is a controversial figure. Tan-nenbaum, a reserve colonel, was seized in Arab territory after having traveled there on a supposed business trip.
The exact details of Tannenbaum's capture are unclear. Tannenbaum left Israel for Brussels in early October 2000, then flew to Abu Dhabi. After that, he either went to Beirut on his own free will or was kidnapped and brought there.
Tannenbaum had faced dire financial difficulties in recent years. His inclusion in the deal was met with intense criticism by some Israelis, who asked why Israel was releasing security prisoners in exchange for a civilian who might have become a hostage because of his own mistakes.
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