A Mother Speaks Out Against Schalit Prisoner Exchange

As we  said last week, we are against the prisoner exchange the Israelis did. Not because we do not think Schalit should be returned but rather the collateral damage that will assuredly occur in the future by those who have been released.

The following piece is self explanatory and explains my thoughts even better than we could.

Please read and comment:

A Mother's Pain

Sherri Mandell - Aish.com,  October 17th, 2011

Why is it that terror victims are seemingly the only ones against the prisoner exchange? While other Israelis are rejoicing, we are in despair.

Arnold and Frimet Roth circulated a petition against the release of Ahlam Tamimi, an accomplice in their daughter Malki’s murder at the Sbarro pizza shop.

Tamimi says she is happy that many children were killed in the attack. Meir Schijveschuurder, whose family was massacred in the same attack, filed a petition with the high court and says he is going to leave Israel because of his feelings of betrayal. The parents of Yasmin Karisi feel that the state is dancing in their blood because Khalil Muhammad Abu Ulbah, who murdered their daughter and seven others by running them down with a bus at the Azor junction in 2001, is also on the list to be released. Twenty-six others were wounded in that attack.

Why are so many of us against the exchange that allows murderers and their accomplices to go free? Because we know the suffering that these murderers leave in their wake.

Yes, I want Gilad Schalit released. But not at any price. Not at the price we have experienced.

My son Koby Mandell and his friend Yosef Ish Ran were murdered by terrorists 10 years ago when they were 13 and 14 years old. They had been hiking in the wadi near our home when they were set upon by a Palestinian mob and stoned to death. It was a brutal, vicious murder.

We now run the Koby Mandell Foundation for terror victims’ families. We direct Camp Koby, a 10-day therapeutic sleep away camp for 400 children who have lost loved ones, mostly to terror. We also run mothers’ healing retreats and support groups.

Most people don’t understand the continuing devastation of grief: fathers who die of heart attacks, mothers who get sick with cancer, children who leave school, families whose only child was murdered. We see depression, suicide, symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. You wouldn’t believe how many victims’ families are still on sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication. We see the pain that doesn’t diminish with time. We literally see people die of grief.

Bereaved families face acute psychological isolation.

Nobody understands us, they often complain.

They mean that nobody understands the duration or the severity of their pain and longing. In the aftermath of a prisoner exchange, this isolation will only be exacerbated.

So will the feeling that our children’s deaths don’t matter.

When people tell me that my son Koby died for nothing, I always used to say: No, it is our job to make his death mean something.

But now I am not sure. It seems that the government is conspiring to ensure that our loved ones’ deaths were for nothing.

Cheapening our loved ones’ deaths only enhances the pain. If Israel is willing to free our loved ones’ murderers, then the rest of the world can look on and assume that the terrorists are really freedom fighters or militants. If Palestinians were murdering Jews in cold blood without justification, surely the Israeli government wouldn’t release them.

No sane government would.

When we were sitting shiva for Koby, a general in the army told us: “We will bring the killers to justice.” I believed him. I took his words to heart. Today I am thankful my son’s killers have not been found. So are my children. Of course, I don’t want the terrorists to kill again. But if they were to be released in this prisoner exchange, I don’t think I could bear it.

We don’t want other families to be put in our situation.

We don’t want terrorists to be free when our loved ones are six feet underground. Ten years after my son was beaten to death, the pain often feels like a prison. In many ways, I am not free.

We don’t want other terrorists to be emboldened because they know that even if they murder, they may not have to stay in prison. President Shimon Peres says he will pardon but he will not forgive. Terrorist victims’ families will not pardon or forgive the government for this release.

We have been betrayed. To pardon terrorists mocks our love and our pain.

Furthermore, terrorism aims to strike fear in an entire society, to bring a whole populace to its knees. During the intifada, the terrorists did not succeed in defeating Israeli society. But to release prisoners now signals to Hamas that their strategy of terror was correct, effective.

They will celebrate wholeheartedly because they have won.

And as a result of prisoner exchanges, the Israeli justice system can only be seen as a joke, a mockery, even a travesty of justice.

It provides no deterrent and no retribution. It’s as if our government says to the killers: Come hurt us again. We’ll be happy to release you one day. We’ll let you go when you demand it.

I want Gilad Schalit home.

We need to protect our own soldiers. But not with a wholesale prisoner exchange. I wish that I could rejoice with the Schalit family. But I can’t. The price is too high.

Egypt Violates Peace Terms

Even before Shalit is released, Egypt broke the terms of the Sinai Peace agreement by conducting military operations in the peninsula.  This is meant to stick a  finger in the eye of Israel and to say to the world that the Peace Agreement is dead. Additionally, the new Egyptian leaders hosted Hamas in Cairo which to us is an indication of their future stand in the region.

In other words, Egypt wants to be a power broker in the region and will take all steps to disassociated itself with the past.  Mubarak may not be dead, but the peace his administration negotiated definitely is.

What is the next step, the next shoe to fall? A military build up in the Sinai? Military support to Hamas? Another war?

Additionally, the United States pressure on Israel is getting heavier as the article that follows indicates. My question is, will the US be there if there is another war? Or will Israel have to stand alone?

You tell me--I am guessing now, but all the answers are pretty scary.

Egypt Defies Sinai Peace Terms, Hosts Hamas in Cairo Before Shalit's Release

DEBKA Staffers - DEBKAfile Exclusive Report,  October 13th, 2011

     Thursday, Oct. 13 Cairo took two steps inimical to Israel. Egyptian Air Force Chief Gen. Reda Hafiz said to the official MENA news agency: “Sinai is our land and we do not need permission to increase our forces on our land” in direct contravention of the 1979 peace treaty signed with Israel which demilitarized Sinai by common consent. He added: “Egyptian planes conduct patrols without Israeli consent to secure Egypt's borders, including the eastern (Israeli) border.”

     Furthermore, without waiting for Hamas to open the prison doors for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit after five years of captivity in the Gaza Strip, Cairo let his captors cash in on the prisoner exchange deal by providing the first Damascus-based Hamas leaders with a home in Cairo.

     DEBKAfile reveals that Wednesday, Oct. 12, Khaled Meshaal's deputy, Mousa Abu Marzuk, won permission from Egyptian intelligence director Maj. Gen. Murad Mowafi to relocate from Damascus to a permanent home in a luxury villa provided him in Cairo.

     Meshaal, who arrived in the Egyptian capital Wednesday, was assured of the same privileges along with the staff of his Damascus politburo, if the new round of Palestinian unity talks launched between Hamas and Fatah in Cairo Thursday progressed satisfactorily.

     Egypt claims that Meshaal arrived to oversee arrangements for the handover of Gilat Shalit next week in return for the first batch of 450 jailed Palestinians. The remainder will be released at a later stage.

     According to our sources, he came to supervise the transfer of his command center from the Syrian capital to Cairo.

     Nonetheless, the Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen denied Wednesday that there were any political strings attached to the prisoner swap transaction that were hidden from the Israeli public. The information about the Hamas move to Cairo contradicts this assertion and also puts a question mark over Cohen's statement that the Shin Bet is capable of containing any security threat posed by turning loose 1,027 convicted Palestinian terrorists under the accord for recovering Gilad Shalit.

     DEBKAfile reports deep resentment in senior military circles over Defense Minister Ehud Barak's message to Cairo of “apologies and deep regrets” as well as condolences for the families of the six Egyptian security personnel “who were killed by Israeli fire.”

     He was referring to an incident at the scene of a terrorist attack, launched from Egyptian Sinai, on buses and cars on the Eilat highway which left eight Israelis dead.

     No inquiry has ever established who caused the deaths of the six Egyptian police officers. Israel thoroughly investigated the incident in response to American and Egyptian demands and decided in the interests of good relations with Cairo to cover up testimony by witnesses on the spot that the six Egyptian officers died while shooting at the Israeli vehicles alongside the terrorists and were in fact indistinguishable from them.

     Furthermore, the terrorists had made all their preparations for the attack on the Sinai side of the border under the eye of an Egyptian police post.

     Neither Netanyahu nor Barak checked with Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz before inculpating his troops for the killing of the Egyptian policemen in an official statement to Cairo.

     All this backdoor dealing has not been brought to the public notice. All other news items are snowed under the emotionalism and drama of the soldier's imminent return which fill all Israel's TV screens and front pages.

     Missing therefore is any disclosure of how the US and Egypt used the Shalit case to legitimize Muslim Brotherhood participation in the Egyptian government, the establishment of ties between the Brotherhood and Washington and the Egyptian Brothers' expanding clout in Ramallah and Gaza.

     The Palestinian Authority's ties with the rejectionist Hamas-Gaza were one of the stumbling blocks which held Israel back from negotiating a permanent peace with the Palestinians. By signing the prisoner swap deal, Israel confronts the formidable Muslim Brothers, parents of Hamas, and paved their path into the West Bank.

     None of Israel's talking heads has been able to explain what made Hamas suddenly flexible enough on its toughest terms to swing the deal. For instance, the top terrorist guns of both Hamas and Fatah were not included in the prisoner swap and will stay in jail.

     The answer is revealed here: It was not Hamas' decision to give way; it was forced to do so by its Egyptian Brotherhood masters. US officials in Cairo for talks with the Brotherhood leaders and Gen Mowafi led them in the real negotiations for the Shalit deal.

     They first established its fundamental and left the Israeli prime minister's emissary David Meidan and the head of Hamas' military wing Muhammad Jabari to tie up the technical ends.

     The Americans pushed Israel hard to accept the deal, while the Brothers gave Hamas no choice

International Law and Schalit

In the previous posting, we talked about the issue of the return of Schalit and how we feel it is not good in the long term for Israel to return 1000+ terrorists. In this posting we see another point that international law is violated by the exchange.  Please understand we are not international law experts, so if there are any lawyers with this experience and have either complementary or opposing opinions, we welcome their comments.

We are not comfortable with the exchange with which  many may disagree. However, if Mr. Beres is correct, violating international law only brings weight to our argument.

What are your opinions?

Schalit deal makes mockery of int'l law

Louis Rene Beres - The Jerusalem Post,  October 16th, 2011

No modern government has the legal right to free terrorists in exchange for its own kidnapped citizens, military or civilian.

Under long-standing international law, every state has a primary obligation to protect its citizens.

Yet it appears that tomorrow, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will exchange Palestinian terrorists for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit. Any such exchange, however humane to Schalit and his family, would imperil thousands of other Israelis.

A core element of all civilized legal systems is the rule of Nullum crimen sine poena, “no crime without a punishment.” This principle, drawn originally from the law of ancient Israel and reaffirmed at the post-war Nuremberg Trials, is part of all international law. It applies here as well.

Were the United States to undertake a Schalit-like deal to free terrorist prisoners, America would stand in violation not only of international law, but also of US law. This is because Article 6 of the Constitution (the “supreme law of the land”) makes all international law part of US law. Several landmark Supreme Court decisions have upheld that stance.

For Israel, there is an additional point: The country also has a pertinent and portentous history of terrorist exchanges. In June 2003, Shurat Hadin, the Israel Law Center, in anticipation of a then-planned terrorist releases, condemned Israel’s freeing of 100 Palestinian prisoners. Later, almost five times that number were freed by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon. In her letter to the prime minister and members of his cabinet, Shurat Hadin director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner wrote that releasing terrorists for any reason would reignite Arab terrorism against defenseless Jewish men, women and especially children.

Nitsana was correct. Soon thereafter, at least two newly released Palestinian terrorists proceeded to launch suicide bomb attacks in Israel. In these attacks, one “military target” of the “heroic fighters” was a cafe filled with mothers and their babies.

Every state has an indisputable core obligation under international law to prosecute and punish terrorists. This obligation derives in part from the “no crime without a punishment” principle and is codified directly in many authoritative sources. It can also be deduced from the binding Nuremberg Principles (1950). According to Principle 1: “Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.”

Terrorism is a serious crime under international law. The precise offenses that comprise this crime can be found at The European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism. Some of the Palestinian terrorists previously released were also guilty of related crimes of war and crimes against humanity. These are Nuremberg-category crimes, so egregious that the perpetrators are known in law as Hostes humani generis, “Common enemies of humankind.”

International law presumes solidarity between states in the fight against all crime, including terrorism. This presumption is mentioned as early as the seventeenth century in Hugo Grotius’ The Law of War and Peace.

Although Israel has a clear jurisdiction to punish any crimes committed on its own territory, it also has the right to act under broader principles of “universal jurisdiction.” Its case for such universal jurisdiction, which derives from an expectation of inter-state solidarity, is found in the four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949. These conventions impose upon the High Contracting Parties the obligation to punish “grave breaches.”

No modern government has the legal right to free terrorists in exchange for its own kidnapped citizens, military or civilian. Terrorism is a criminally sanctionable violation of international law that is not subject to manipulation by individual countries. In the United States, it is clear from the Constitution that the president’s power to pardon does not encompass violations of international law. Rather, this power is always limited precisely to “offenses against the United States.”

In originally capturing and punishing Palestinian terrorists, Israel acted on behalf of all states. Moreover, because some of the terrorists had committed their crimes against other states, Israel cannot properly pardon these offenses against other sovereigns.

Although Mr. Netanyahu’s impending prisoner exchange would not, strictly speaking, represent a “pardon,” it would have exactly the same effect.

No state possesses the authority to pardon violations of international law. No matter what might be permissible under its own Basic Law, any impending political freeing of terrorists by Israel would be impermissible. The fundamental principle is also established in law that, by virtue of such releases, the releasing state itself must assume responsibility for past criminal acts, and for future ones.

Under international law, Netanyahu’s impending exchange, effectively analogous to a mass pardoning of criminals, would implicate the Jewish state for a “denial of justice.” This could have practical consequences. Although it is arguable that punishment, which is central to justice, does not always deter future crimes, such an Israeli freeing of terrorists would undermine the Jewish state’s legal obligation to incapacitate violent criminals from committing new acts of mass murder.

A tragic aspect of modern international law is the need to make hard and painful choices in order to safeguard larger populations from future harm. Mr. Netanyahu

The writer is professor of international law at Purdue University and is author of many books and articles dealing with international criminal law.