Meir Indoris the Director of the Almagor Terror Victims Association
Many people have asked me why the Almagor Terror Victims Association is filing a restraining order before the Israel Supreme Court in an effort to prevent the deal worked out between the Government of Israel and Hamas to release 50 hostages in exchange for the release of 300 Hamas members imprisoned in Israel. The deal includes a cease fire of four days - during which Hamas will certainly regroup, place more explosives that later endanger our soldiers - while the exchange is implemented in day-by-day stages.
In a book written by Prime Minister Netanyahu, he writes: “You don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
We, along with all the people of Israel, sympathize deeply with the hostages and their families. However, there are many victimized families who do not agree with the proposed exchange, believing that it will weaken the war effort and impair the chances of securing the release of all of the hostages, the great majority of whom are not included in the proposed exchange.
The history of past exchanges has also shown that released terrorists return to committing crimes against the Jewish people and that Israel’s willingness to accept enemy demands in such deals only heightens the enemy’s motivation to kidnap more innocent Jews and IDF soldiers.
In the 2011 Shalit deal, which we also protested before the Supreme Court, it should be remembered that Ismail Haniyeh, the present leader of Hamas in Gaza, was among the 1027 Hamas terrorists who were freed, many of whom participated in the recent massacre of Jews on Simchat Torah. It is also important to note that after the Supreme Court refused our appeal, a high-ranking member of the Defense Department approached me and thanked me, saying: “If your group hadn’t protested this exchange in the demonstrations you organized against it, we would be releasing even more terrorists than we finally agreed to.”
We demand that all of the details of the exchange be brought before the High Court. It has been our experience that there were many hidden and dangerous details in similar exchanges carried out in the past that were not revealed to the public. That is why we yesterday demanded the Justice Department to publish a full list of the Hamas prisoners involved in the exchange, including the crimes they committed, and the length of their sentences.
Furthermore, we demand that the details of the ceasefire be elucidated in full, spelling out all of the restrictions on IDF activity, on the gathering of military information, and on materials such as fuel that will be allowed into Gaza which could be used to strengthen the enemy in its war against the citizens of Israel – for example as fuel for their missiles.
In addition we want to know all of the unspoken agreements which the Government of Israel promised Hamas either directly or via third parties, such as the United States, which are not explicitly recorded in the published exchange agreement.
Last night on Channel 14 Television, Eliahu Liebman, father of the hostage Elyakym Liebman, summed up the dilemma in his valorous protest against the proposed deal: “We want all of our hostages released, and the only way to do that is by attacking the enemy with all of our strength, without interruption and without surrendering to their demands, as if they are the victors. If we don’t learn from the mistakes of the past, we will be forced to suffer similar tragedies over and over until our enemies realize that they have nothing to gain in their efforts to destroy the State of Israel.”