Gilad Shalit Returns Home

This week, Gilad Shalit, after five years of captivity deep in the recesses of the Gaza Strip without visitation from anyone, including the Red Cross, returned home to much fanfare. His family was there, his Prime Minister was there. The world was watching.

Gilad of course was not the only one to return home this week. Along with him, over a thousand Palestinians, some serving many consecutive life sentences, also packed their bags, left their cells, and headed home to heroes welcomes.

The prisoner swap was controversial. In fact, bereaved families who lost loved ones to those newly freed and soon-to-be-freed on the Palestinian side of the deal, have taken their case to the Israeli Supreme Court, arguing that while Shalit deserves his freedom, the cost simply is too great.

Israel, for its part, has had every released prisoner sign a contract guaranteeing that they will not jump back into the movement that landed them in an Israeli prison in the first place. Israel has further attempted to pacify the bereaved families by assuring them that no serious leaders of any terrorist movements will walk under this deal. But it is certainly a who’s who of the Intifada that is heading home nonetheless.

The question today is not why Israel has decided to make this most-lopsided of deals (the most lopsided yet in Israeli history, but presumably not as lopsided as all those to come). Gilad Shalit was serving in a people’s army that means it when they say “No Man Left Behind.” Israel has made great sacrifices in the past for taken soldiers, and even remains of soldiers. Rest assured, if you serve in the IDF, Israel will do everything in its power to ensure you a proper burial at Mt. Herzl.

Rather the question is why today? This deal has been on the table for many years in an almost identical format. No one key player was removed to sweeten the deal, no further compromises offered from Hamas towards Israel. What changed? Why did Israel let Gilad spend as much time in a Gazan hole as most students at San Diego State University take to graduate, just to free him with a deal that had been on the table since halfway through freshman year?

Certainly the world has become a more complicated place in the last five years. The Arab Spring is well under way. Israelis have been taking to the streets in numbers that are shocking even for Israel, a country that believes in taking to the streets. Gilad’s parents have spent the last year in a tent outside of the Prime Minister’s house. (It is worth noting that it was a similar protest that ultimately drove Menachem Begin to retirement. In Begin’s case, the protesters were counting dead bodies, in Netanyahu’s case, the protesters were a constant reminder of one living body.)

Why make Gilad sit, his parents struggle, and the whole country hurt for five years, to then ultimately free him with a deal that had been on the table all along? I do not have the answer; I am simply asking the question.

Regardless, we can all agree that it is good to have Gilad home. Only the best for him from here on out.

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