The "Almagor" Terror Victims Association says the Jewish Agency's public campaign against Israeli "apathy" regarding the IDF captives might actually boomerang against Israel.

The Jewish Agency has been sponsoring a public campaign of billboards and large photos of the three Israeli captives kidnapped most recently by Hamas and Hizbullah - Gilad Shalit in Gaza, and Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser by Hizbullah in southern Lebanon.  The words "Our Apathy Will Kill Them" under the photos are designed to arouse the Israeli public to take unspecified action on their behalf.

However, Almagor feels that the message is liable to have a detrimental effect.  "It is actually a call to pressure the government to carry out a prisoner exchange at any price - something that, with all the understanding we have for the families' suffering, must be negated."

Terrorist Murderer Sentenced to Life - see below



"Prisoner release deals might bring back the three captives," Almagor says, "but at the price of many other Israeli deaths - as occurred over the past five years, when 179 people were murdered by terrorists who had been freed in previous deals and gestures."

"It’s not the Jewish Agency's job to take sides in an internal matter of ethics concerning Israeli society," says Meir Indor of Almagor. "It should rather invest its efforts in arranging rallies and protests abroad in those countries that were instrumental in forcing a ceasefire upon us [at the end of the Second Lebanon War in August 2006] while the soldiers were still held captive.  Israeli society does not need reminders about their so-called apathy; both the nation and its leadership were not at all apathetic, and made great efforts to free the captives - including going out to war.  The accusations of 'apathy' are therefore infuriating."

"All the rallies and declarations simply raise the price for receiving our hostages back home.  The more quiet and patience we show, the easier it will be to reach a solution that will minimize the risk of future kidnappings."

Shifra Hoffman of Victims of Arab Terror International, on the other hand, says not to throw the baby out with the bathwater: "The protests and rallies in favor of the captives are very important, and they must be worldwide and non-stop - but they must also emphasize that this must not come at the expense of releasing Arab terrorists.  The bottom line is strength, while our government is exhibiting only weakness.  Just recently, British reporter Alan Johnston was kidnapped by Hamas - and Britain stood strong, and he was finally released without Britain giving up anything."



Regev and Goldwasser were kidnapped by Hizbullah 17 months ago, and Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas two weeks earlier; Shalit is believed to be alive. Hamas released an audio tape of Shalit late in June, but no positive sign has been heard from the others.

Counter-Pressure the Arabs

Almagor says the Palestinians themselves must be pressured in order to bring freedom to our captives: "Why is that when we are not even permitted to visit our captive soldiers, the terrorists in our prisons continue to live as usual?  We must immediately stop their university studies as well as their other luxurious conditions, such as self-cooking and high-level canteens."

Nearly 430 terrorists were released by the Olmert government last week as a goodwill gesture, with government officials emphasizing, as usual, that none of them were guilty of murder.  This does not allay Almagor's fears.  "It should be emphasized," the organization says, "that the term 'without blood on their hands' portrays these terrorists as less dangerous - but in fact they 'have no blood on their hands' only because the Israeli security services managed to arrest them before they could murder, or because they were indirectly involved in murder, or the like.  In actuality, they would be quite happy to be 'with blood on their hands.'"

Almagor has found that a clear majority of freed terrorists returned to terrorism after their release - "leading to a price in human life many times greater than the grave difficulties faced by a given individual family."

30 Attacks

In 30 attacks perpetrated in recent years by terrorists freed in prisoner exchanges or otherwise, nearly 180 innocent citizens, mostly Israeli Jews, were killed, and many were also seriously wounded.

Almagor's most recent findings are that of the nearly 7,000 terrorists who were freed between 1993 and 1999, over 850 (12.4%) had been re-arrested for murderous activity by August 2003.  Another two-thirds of them returned to terrorist activity, be it in capacities of command, training or actual perpetration of attacks.

For more details, click here.

Har-Sinai Murderer Sentenced

In a related item, the IDF Military Court in Judea has sentenced Jihad Najar to life in prison for murdering Jewish shepherd Ya'ir Har-Sinai in July 2001.  Najar approached Har-Sinai, pretending to be interested in buying sheep - and then stabbed him to death.  An accomplice who then shot Har-Sinai was killed in a shootout with IDF forces two years later.