After the Exchange: What Israel Should Do Now - The Real Price Tag

By Sherwin Pomerantz

If all goes according to plan tomorrow Gilad Schalit, who has been held by Hamas in Gaza for over five years, will return to Israel and the waiting arms of his parents. In return Israel will release 1,027 convicts and 81 Egyptians jailed here at which time Ilan Grapel, the Israeli-American Emory University law student held in Cairo since June will also be released.

This exchange has elicited very strong feelings on both sides of the political spectrum and questions remain as to whether it was the right thing to do, although I personally remain convinced that it, indeed, was the right thing to do. However, in order to minimize the chances of this type of thing occurring again, Israel must take specific actions in the future to dissuade terrorists from killing our citizens.

In a word, once the full exchange has taken place, our government should make it known to one and all that the penalty for terrorism that results in the death of our citizens, once the perpetrators are found guilty by Israeli courts, will be execution. The world community may think this is a harsh response but people who decide to blow up pizza parlors where normal citizens of Israel are enjoying lunch, must understand that the same punishment they have meted out to our citizens will be meted out to them as well. My guess is that if we do that once or twice when such situations occur, God forbid, again in the future, terrorists will think twice about engaging in such activities.

This was, of course, my big personal disappointment after the pullout from Gaza in 2005. It was my hope that our government would have said to one and all, that now that we are out of Gaza there is a clear international border between Israel and Gaza. Given that, should rockets start coming at us from Gaza, for each attack we will simply obliterate one square kilometer of land around the place from which the rockets were fired. I thought then, as I do now, that it was a strategic error on our part not to have done this. And, of course, not having done so, our citizens in the south of the country paid a huge price for our ineptitude.

Taking a position on future terrorist acts that once the accused person has been found guilty, he or she will be executed, will at least give some small measure of solace to those parents who have previously lost children in terrorist acts and who are now witness to those who are guilty being released back to Arab society. We owe them that much as we do those in the future who might also suffer such losses. And to the perpetrators of these crimes we, of course, owe nothing, except a fair trial before punishment.

The first and second time we carry out such executions we can be sure that the world press will spread those pictures across five columns on page one of the next day’s edition. Nevertheless, I am pretty confident that the risks of there being a third or fourth time will be reduced dramatically in the face of such swift and final justice. We do not ever want to have to witness what we will witness this week, the release of hundreds of unrepentant criminals back into society where they will be able, should they desire to do so, to continue their errant ways.

I remain happy that Israel did the moral thing and rescued one of our young men from the hands of the enemy. But we now must do everything possible to make sure we never have to do this again. That’s the price tag for such action and people who contemplate terror should understand what it will cost them personally. Anything less on our part will be an insult to the memory of those who gave their lives here only because they were Jews.

Martin Luther King Jr, whose memorial was dedicated on Sunday in Washington DC once said: “A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men, purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.” The message should be clear to one and all that we here in Israel pay cash!