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Jewish World Review July 11, 2008 /8 Tamuz 5768 A tale of two hostages By Caroline B. Glick
Bentancourt's statement made thousands of Israelis wince.
Held hostage in the Colombian jungles for six years by the narco-terror
group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC,
Bentancourt, a dual Colombian-French citizen who was a Colombian senator and
presidential candidate at the time she was abducted, obviously had not heard
the news about the "new Israel." Her statements were based on her historical
memory of the "old Israel."
She didn't know that the "new Israel" doesn't fight terrorists. The "new
Israel" views fighting terrorists as an exercise in futility. Its leaders
and military chiefs alike repeat endlessly the mantra that there is no
military victory to be had, only a political accommodation.
She didn't know that the week before she was rescued, the "new Israel" made
a deal with Hizbullah to release five senior Lebanese terrorists, an unknown
number of Palestinian terrorists and hundreds of bodies of dead terrorists
in exchange for the bodies of IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud
Goladwasser who were murdered by Hizbullah two years ago.
The "new Israel" is the Israel that maintains one-sided "ceasefires" with
Hamas and is poised to make a deal with Hamas by which it will release up to
a thousand Palestinian terrorists in exchange for IDF hostage Gilad Shalit.
No, Betancourt, was thinking of the "old Israel" — the Israel that
electrified the world when it sent its commandos thousands of miles to free
its hostages in Entebbe 32 years ago. It was that memory of Israeli heroism
that doubtless gave hope to Bentancourt and her fellow hostages as they
languished in FARC captivity in the jungle, malnourished, ill-treated and
terrorized. The Entebbe rescue allowed them to fantasize that one day, they
too would be rescued and their tormentors would be brought to justice. And
last week, their dreams came true.
Betancourt had reasons beside her plight as a hostage to associate
Colombia's struggle with Israel's. At the time she was abducted, both
countries faced similar political and military challenges and at the time
both countries seemed to be embarking on similar paths to surmount them.
When Betancourt was kidnapped in April 2002, Colombia had just disavowed a
failed strategy of appeasing FARC. To bring FARC to the negotiating table,
former president Andres Pastrana agreed to transfer control over a swathe of
Colombian territory the size of Switzerland to FARC. Rather than reciprocate
this peace offering with one of its own, FARC used its safe haven to
increase its recruitment of terrorists and intensify its kidnapping campaign
and drug trafficking operations. For nearly four years, Pastrana refused to
disavow the phony "peace process" in spite of repeated FARC attacks. It was
only in February 2002, after FARC hijacked an airliner and kidnapped its
fifth lawmaker in a year that Pastrana finally repudiated his appeasement
drive.
Similarly, in 2002, Israel was in the grips of an unprecedented Palestinian
terror campaign with suicide bombings going off almost daily. Then prime
minister Ariel Sharon had been elected the previous year to replace the
discredited Ehud Barak as premier after the latter's appeasement strategy at
Camp David had failed and Israel's eight-year-old Oslo appeasement strategy
had fallen apart. When Betancourt was taken prisoner, Sharon had just
launched Operation Defensive Shield with the express purpose of defeating
the Palestinian terror networks in Judea and Samaria.
What Bentancourt didn't know was that since her abduction, Israel and
Colombia have gone their separate ways. Under President Alvero Uribe who was
elected after her capture, Colombia has moved steadily toward full victory
over FARC. On the other hand, Israel has abandoned victory as a strategic
concept for contending with its enemies.
Israel's abdication of its struggle against its terrorist enemies was as
swift and unmistakable as it was inexplicable. Rather than following up
Israel's military defeat of the Palestinian terror machine in Judea and
Samaria in 2002 with a similar operation in Gaza or with a political
offensive against the PLO which Defensive Shield exposed as the central
engine behind the Palestinian terror war, Sharon opted to withdraw from the
fight and return to the discredited policy of appeasement which Israeli
voters twice rejected.
First Sharon accepted the so-called Roadmap to Peace in 2003. Predicated on
the false assumption that the Palestinians are interested in peace with
Israel and can be appeased into accepting statehood and Israel's right to
exist, the Roadmap precludes any Israeli option for victory.
When the Palestinians refused to end their support for Israel's destruction
in spite of the Roadmap, Sharon abandoned appeasement for peace and opting
instead for surrender for "quiet." His unilateral surrender of Gaza
demoralized Israeli society, weakened Israel's democratic institutions and
propelled Hamas and Iran to power in Gaza. Rather than recognize that the
move had been a strategic catastrophe which called into question Israel's
ability to act as an ally in the US-led war on terror, Sharon launched
Kadima as a new political party dedicated entirely to appeasement and
capitulation.
After Ehud Olmert replaced Sharon as premier in November 2005, he brought
Kadima to victory in the March 2006 elections by pledging to expand Sharon's
"capitulation for quiet" strategy to Judea and Samaria. When Israel's
neighbors responded to that agenda with war from Lebanon and Gaza, Olmert
and his colleagues were forced to return to their previous appeasement for
peace agenda. But their refusal to countenance the option of victory over
Israel's implacable foes remains the order of the day.
In contrast, the Uribe government in Colombia has never veered from its
single-minded goal of defeating FARC both militarily and politically. With
US assistance, Uribe has rebuilt Colombia's military into a highly competent
counter-insurgency force. His counterinsurgency has brought both defeat and
demoralization to FARC's doorstep. FARC's guerilla force which numbered
18,000 just a few years ago, has been reduced by an estimated 50 percent.
Busy with their own survival, FARC's remaining forces have been unable to
conduct any sustained operations against the Uribe government or rank and
file Colombians in recent years. Restored security has brought economic
growth and prosperity. And both have stabilized the Uribe government. Like
the Palestinians, FARC enjoys the support of the international Left and
leftist governments. In FARC's case, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has been
the terror group's primary military, financial and political backer.
Ecuador, led by Rafael Correa's Chavez-allied leftist government, has also
become a major sponsor of FARC. In March, Uribe risked regional war in order
to defeat FARC by raiding a FARC base on the Ecuadoran side of the border.
The raid was immensely successful. FARC's deputy commander Raul Reyes was
killed and his computers — carrying massive intelligence information — were
seized. As Ecuador cut off diplomatic relations and Chavez deployed troops
to his border with Colombia, Uribe stalwartly defended the raid. He defended
the raid even as the French government attacked him claiming that Reyes had
been their negotiating partner in their quest to secure Betancourt's
release.
Israel's governments have systematically prevented the publication
of information regarding Fatah's leadership role in the terror war, and its
ties to Iran, and Syria. They have also refused to take any action against
Israeli organizations and politicians bankrolled illegally by foreign
governments. In contrast, Uribe moved quickly to use the information exposed
by Reyes's computers to discredit Chavez, FARC and their Colombian and
foreign sympathizers. Reyes's files showed that neither FARC nor Chavez nor
pro-Chavez Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba were negotiating Betancourt's
release in good faith.
Understanding that she was their most powerful
bargaining chip against the Uribe government, in their internal discussions,
all three attested to their opposition to her release. Uribe's release of
the information decreased French pressure for a deal. Chavez was further
discredited and Bogota's prosecutor opened a criminal probe against Cordoba
on treason-related charges. According to media reports, the Ecuador raid
also provided the Colombian military with actionable intelligence it needed
to move forward with its plans for last week's rescue mission. That is, each
successful raid paved the way for the next achievement.
The Israeli media's
response to the Colombia rescue mission has been to inflate the "Israeli
role" in the mission. Numerous reports have been published in the local
press about the fact that the Colombians hired retired IDF generals Yisrael
Ziv and Yossi Kupperwasser to help them build up their counter-terror
capabilities. Far from obscuring the yawning gap between Colombia and
Israel, these reports bring Israel's abandonment of the fight into sharp
relief. They show clearly that Israel's decision to capitulate has nothing
to do with an inability to fight to victory.
It is a failure of will rather
than a failure of capacity that has brought Israel to its current cowed and
humiliated condition where its media argues over how many terrorists should
be exchanged for Shalit and ignores completely the very notion that he can
be rescued. And of Israel could attempt to rescue him.
While success is
never assured, it is a fact that just as Colombia was able to find and
rescue Betancourt and her fellow hostages in the jungle, so Israel could, if
it dared, conduct a competent operation aimed at rescuing Shalit in Gaza.
Like Colombia it could acquire the intelligence necessary to plan and carry
out such a raid. Like Colombia, its forces are competent to succeed in such
an endeavor.
Until last week's raid, one of the main sources of pressure on
the Uribe government was Betancourt's family. Her mother and her children
met frequently with Chavez and railed against Uribe in their eagerness to
see her released. Speaking of her experience and of her rescue in Paris this
week, Betancourt, who over the years tried to escape five times, was clear
that she preferred freedom to slavery, even if it came only in death.
As
French philosopher Andre Glucksmann wrote in City Journal, it was freedom,
not life that she held most sacred. And while she understood her family's
actions, she clearly did not embrace their pacifism as she praised Uribe for
rescuing her despite the risk that the mission would fail and she and her
fellow hostages would be killed. It is hard to imagine that as a soldier,
Shalit feels any differently from Betancourt. Why should we assume that he
prefers live as a slave than die in a quest for freedom? It is a travesty,
that in their inexplicable abandonment of honorable struggle against
murderous foes in favor of dangerous appeasement, Olmert and his colleagues
have denied Shalit the respect due a warrior and have denied the IDF the
right to fight for Israel's freedom.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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