Danny Haran holding me months before Qantar murdered himToday is the day to condemn the Israeli government for one of its most stupid acts in its beleaguered 60 year history.

In exchange for two dead soldiers, the Israeli government took the ludicrous decision to hand over their most prized living prisoner, Samir Qantar - alive and determined to continue his reign of terror.

Samir Qantar murdered three people, two of whom were my cousins: 28-year-old Danny Haran (pictured holding me just a few months before Qantar murdered him) and his 4-year-old daughter Einat Haran (who would be a year older than me today). Samir Qantar also caused the death of Einat’s 2-year-old sister Yael, as her mother, Smadar, covered the child’s mouth to stop her crying and being found by Qantar. To read more of what happened in April 1979 see here and my relatives’ reaction to today’s events here.

The issue today though is the message the release of such a murderer as Samir Qantar gives the Israeli public and its armed forces. With this release Israel has become a country that will set free a living murderer of three of its civilians in exchange for coffins.

You might think that’s a noble and forgiving thing to do but what then happens to justice? Is the Israeli government saying that it will seek justice for its murdered civilians only as far as it can use those prisoners as bargaining chips? Does justice in Israel now come with an expiry date - the higher the celebrity the lower the sentence?

Of course the Israeli government should do all it can to get its soldiers back from the enemy, and it’s understandable that if a government has no backbone to fight an insurgency or proxy that it will naturally seek to retreat and capitulate.

But the price Israel pays for such myopic weakness goes beyond just strengthening the enemy. It goes beyond making a mockery of those soldiers’ sacrifice. Such capitulation makes a fool of justice itself.

Israel fought a war in 2006 and several other wars prior to that to defend its right to secure its borders, uphold justice and keep Qantar behind bars. Thousands have died in the fighting. What was all that fighting for if Israel was only going to release this triple-murderer in the end anyway - and not for live prisoners but for coffins? Did all those soldiers and civilians die in vain?

I find it hard to imagine soldiers agreeing for their dead remains to be used in an exchange for one of Israel’s most notorious living civilian killers. I believe they would see this exchange as a betrayal of their sacrifice. Hizb’allah killed those soldiers and still got what they originally wanted - the release of Samir Qantar - as their reward. Has Israel lost its senses?

So for Israel to release Samir Qantar after all that’s happened to both sides of the border, it can’t just be about getting back two dead soldiers; not even a corrupt Olmert government would seriously contemplate that.

London: danny haran with me and my mum

Hence, the charge against this Israeli government is this: Israel released Qantar because it lost the will to uphold justice. The price is too high. What Israel fears is another war with another Iranian proxy that can use the despicable Samir Qantar as a justification. Israel would rather have some fleeting moral high ground than uphold justice. And there I was thinking you couldn’t have one without the other.

That’s the victory Hizb’allah are celebrating tonight. Hizb’allah have made Israel lose a war, retreat, and now give up seeking justice, too. Misogynistic, homophobic, Jew-hating Hizb’allah have proved to the world that complacent Israel has finally lost its moral compass. Now, if you were the enemy, wouldn’t you have reason to celebrate all that? Isn’t that part of their ‘destruction of Israel’ to morally confuse their enemy till they can no longer tell right from wrong or what they’re even fighting for?

If you were the enemy would you really care that Qantar cowardly murdered a terrified four-year-old girl with the butt of his rifle if he was part of a war of attrition, insurgency, and terrorism that complacent Israel no longer has the stomach to fight?

Hizb’allah - like the PLO - have proved to the world that terrorism and the murder of innocent civilian life pays, and pays well.

And if something pays well, there will always be legions of people wanting to be part of the action, even if the price you pay is to be the murderous ‘heroes’ of child murder.

So the war of attrition continues with an embarrassed Israel further demoralised and weaker. But let’s not forget that it was the fickle Israeli people who elected the government that voted to betray its murdered citizens: citizens who made the greatest sacrifice a citizen can make for their country: they gave their lives, while triple-murderer Samir Qantar can walk free today, tomorrow and the next day. There are a lot of dead civilians and soldiers turning in their graves tonight.

What was Israel founded for again?

See also:

Danny Haran with Einat (4) and Yael (2)

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