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Gilad Shalit is watching the World Cup. At least, that’s what his captors are telling the rest of the world.

No one can know for certain, but I guess the Hamas propaganda department thinks this will demonstrate the generous hospitality of their genocidal movement. It’s no Hilton, but you don’t get sports on satellite at a Budget 8 Motel.

It is four years since Shalit was snatched by a Palestinian hit squad through the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel. It’s a long time – particularly spent in the company of Islamist fanatics known for using power drills and crowbars on their own people.

From the beginning, I felt a real horror at Shalit’s predicament. Not least because the images of him on television and newspapers in those first weeks in 2006 reminded me of another skinny Jew in army fatigues. I served as an army reservist with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles infantry many years ago. I could see in the lenses of Shalit’s glasses a reflection of my own self that might have been, had I ever been taken prisoner on some distant battlefield (Some of my colleagues in the battalion ended up serving in the former Yugoslavia as peacekeepers, risking their lives to stop Serbs, Bosnians and Croats from killing each other).

Redemption and Choosing the Lesser Evil
Despite my heartfelt sympathy for Shalit, I’ve never had much sympathy for the idea of a prisoner exchange to secure his release. How do you give in to terrorists’ demands without giving them an incentive to keep doing it?

I was surprised to find myself in opposition to a majority of Israeli society on this. Most seem to favor a negotiated release that will most likely involve trading hundreds, perhaps thousands of prisoners for Shalit’s freedom.

“Israelis are deeply divided on this,” my guide noted while looking at Shalit’s face on a billboard along the road. Our guide had served with the paratroopers in the 2008 war in Lebanon and knew quite well the danger of being captured by the other side. “It’s very painful for us. But Jews have a strong need deep in our souls to do whatever we can to redeem captives.”

This stems in no small part from the historical founding myth of a Jewish nation that itself arose out of captivity in Egypt. But it is also part of a Jewish tradition going back to the scholar Maimonides, who wrote letters exhorting his fellow Jews to redeem captives and collected the money to get them back.

And of course there is a practical military argument for going to extreme, even absurd lengths to get back captives: if soldiers fear they’ll be on their own if taken prisoner, they may refrain from moving too quickly into enemy territory.

But what about giving terrorists an incentive to kidnap more Israelis. “Look, it’s not like Hamas and the rest of them are ever going to stop trying to get us,” my guide says with a shrug. “They’ll keep trying no matter what. Not negotiating doesn’t keep us more or less safe. The IDF keeps us safe. Our own security measures keep us safe, and for the most part, they’re working.”

To an extent, you can’t argue with that logic. The time when Israelis endured a suicide bombing or other outrage on a weekly basis is already a fading memory. Controversial measures like checkpoints and the infamous security “wall” may keep Palestinians and international human rights advocates in a perpetual frenzy, but bombs aren’t getting into discos and pizza parlors anymore.

I’m still not quite convinced. The problem of trading Shalit or any individual Israeli for hundreds of Palestinians is one of perception to outsiders.

I’m aware of the historical Jewish tradition of redemption. In that sense, it shows a generosity of spirit and perhaps even a higher ethical standard. But outsiders, most Canadians included, won’t see it that way.

In fact, any such lopsided trade would seem to provide evidence of Israel as a deeply unethical, unlawful rogue state. Let me explain. 

Some interesting comments of late coming from Turkey’s leader, regarding Kurdish terrorist attacks:

“I say here very clearly, they will not win. They will gain nothing. They will melt away in their own darkness … they will drown in their own blood.” (The Guardian)

“Our fight will continue until the terrorist organization has been annihilated.” (BBC News)

Of course, Mr. Erdogan is very careful speaker and his words are not to be taken out of context. There are terrorists and then there are… whatever this Hamas guy is. Definitely not a terrorist, though.

The macho dude above is in Gaza. And you can’t be a terrorist and live in Gaza. Just like it’s impossible for a Muslim nation to commit genocide — which is certainly of great consolation to the victims of Darfur as well as a million or so dead Armenians.

Terry Glavin helps explain the sad end of the dream of global solidarity and peace between Israelis and Palestinians. An excerpt from The Mark:

“It’s over.”

You could hear the heartbreak in his voice. The shattered dreams of reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, the lost opportunities for genuine global solidarity with that gallant cause – it was all there in Yossi Klein Halevi’s voice.

“It’s over. I’m reminded of that every day. I can see it from my front porch. The wall. You can’t get away from it. The wall reminds you that it’s over.”

“The wall” is what Jerusalemites call the especially grim and forbidding portion of Israel’s separation barrier that rings their city, which is otherwise mainly a complex of fences, motion sensors, trenches, and concertina wire that snakes its way around ancient Judea and Samaria, enclosing the West Bank. Israel built the barrier as a defence against the Palestinian suicide bombers who were obliterating hundreds of Israeli civilians during the final years of the 20th century. In Jerusalem, it’s an eight-metre-high concrete blight.

I met with Halevi in Jerusalem three weeks before the May 31 high-seas Mavi Marmara calamity. Nine dead at last count. A flotilla had set out from Turkey and Cyprus to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Israeli commandos intervened and things went badly. The hysteria billowed around the world, from the usual anti-Israel protesters carrying “Gaza Genocide” placards in cities across Canada to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan accusing Israel of a “bloody massacre.” But it is Halevi’s quiet voice, with its weary timbre, that I can still hear the loudest.

An Israeli journalist and author, Halevi came to prominence in the mid-1990s with a memoir that chronicled his break with Jewish extremism. In 2001, his At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land, explored the brave idea that affectionate bonds of faith might be forged across the great monotheisms that meet at their ancient intersection of Jerusalem.

But just as Halevi was settling into the role of peace-camp activist and intellectual, al-Qaeda plunged two airliners into the World Trade Center in New York, the Euro-American left decided that Zionism was the most foul of all the plagues upon the world, and the peace process that began with the Oslo Accords, which had laid the groundwork for a free Palestine thriving alongside Israel, was in shards. The al-Aqsa intifada set off a cycle of suicide bombings, reprisals, and repression that left nearly 6,000 Palestinians and Israelis dead and a massive wall running through Jerusalem.

Nothing seemed to matter or make sense. Unilaterally evict all 9,000 Israeli settlers from Gaza for the sake of peace and the next thing you know Hamas has turned the place into a Khomeinist-sponsored crackpot statelet severed from the West Bank by a fratricidal civil war that has so far cost about 2,000 Palestinian lives. And there were still thousands of rockets being fired into Israel from Gaza every year. That’s what Israel’s mainstream doves had to show for themselves. That, and abandonment by their erstwhile counterparts in Europe and North America. “It was the total collapse of the Israeli left,” Halevi said.

Libby Davies can be seen on YouTube saying she thinks that chanting “long live the intifada” “sounds good” and saying (not once but twice) that Israel has been occupying Palestinian land since 1948, that “it’s the longest occupation in history,” and that it’s time for boycotts and disinvestment. – Bob Rae

People are fired up about this. Here’s video of a protest outside NDP MP Libby Davies’ office in the heart of Vancouver:

I’ve often attempted to remind readers of the importance of holding the line in Afghanistan for progressive reasons and firm principles: support for the universality of human rights, defense of women and children targeted by the thugs in the Taliban, support for democracy, the institutions of modernity and a better life for people who deserve something more than tyranny.

I’ve noted that this mission is something both in the finer tradition of Canadian interventions on behalf of freedom abroad. It is also a shining example of a United Nations-supported mission that has brought together the brave soldiers, aid workers and resources of dozens of nations in the fight against fascism and darkness.

On this note, the signs coming from Canadian politicians like Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff as well as a growing number of Conservative politicians and commentators about a renewed role for Canada in Afghanistan are very encouraging. Their brave words calling for a public debate on this important issue ought to be heeded by the Prime Minister, and quickly.

But the confirmation of perhaps $1 trillion worth of mineral deposits in Afghanistan changes the equation for some people. With reptilian logic, they will point to a conspiracy of international neo-cons and their shadowy corporate masters being the real reason for international intervention — as though 9/11 never happened and Afghanistan had never served as a safe haven for some of the worst examples of thuggery and terror that this planet has to offer.

As any rational thinking person would, I dismiss these conspiracists out of hand. But their cynical response does certainly beg the question: what precisely is wrong about foreign mining companies making a decent profit and employing thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Afghans in good, high-paying jobs that don’t involve the heroin trade or freelance work for the insurgency? And if keeping the insurgency down permanently and avoiding a return of terror bases to Afghanistan also provides some insurance that our trade routes and economies will not be sabotaged into recession, resulting in more financial hardship for both Wall Street and Main Street, what’s wrong with that, either?

I explore these questions further in my latest Mark Op Ed, Self-Interest in Afghanistan:

Ever since the Taliban got turfed out of office by American daisy cutters from above and horseback-riding Northern Alliance fighters on the ground, Al Qaeda hasn’t been able to use Afghanistan as a base to attack our cities.

Critics will point out that the bad guys are still using places like Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the odd apartment in Denver, Colorado.

But that isn’t an argument against finishing the job in Afghanistan. On the contrary, it’s an argument for building on our successes and taking down the rest of the terrorist enclaves in failed states, as well as those in middle-of-nowhere, USA.

Other critics will say that the cost of keeping the boys in the black turbans on the run just isn’t worth it. Way more people die from car accidents than terrorist bombs. Besides, if we stay out of their countries, won’t they just leave us alone?

Again, let’s look at it from the perspective of our pocketbook. We’ve just come through a bitch of an economic meltdown. Many of us are still hurting pretty bad. So how do you think it’s going to affect the world economy if the Taliban wins in Afghanistan and an endless stream of “martyrs” the world over are emboldened to carry out even more brazen terror attacks than they do now?