By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem ----- July 16, 2008 ....... Israel is an angry nation tonight. The day began with tears as many turned on their TV sets to witness a prisoner exchange between the living and the dead over the Lebanon border. By evening, those of us in Israel watched with disbelief as barbaric images of Islamic terrorists in Lebanon and Gaza celebrated the release of a child murderer.

This tragic episode in the history of Israel began two years ago.

On July 12, 2006 fighting began on the Lebanon Israel border when Hezbollah launched rockets on Israel Defense Forces positions. Many believe that those rockets were used as a diversion to attack an Israel border patrol and take prisoners. In the fighting an Israel tank was blown up, killing all 4 crew members. Israel reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were riding in IDF patrol vehicles when they were struck by anti-tank rockets.

Security sources believe that both Goldwasser and Regev were injured in the attack, with one of them dying shortly afterward. The other IDF soldier was believed to have been murdered in captivity. A massive nation wide campaign began for the return of the missing soldiers resulting in a Cabinet decision to create a prisoner swap.

Israel Prime Minister Olmert and the security establishment then launched the Lebanon war to rescue both Regev and Goldwasser.

In a communication from the Israel Prime Ministers Office to the Israel News Agency, a media advisor stated that the Israel Cabinet discussed the return of the IDF soldiers who were abducted by Hezbollah in July 2006, with the main subject being Hezbollah's report on Ron Arad. The Cabinet meeting followed that of June 29, at which the outline for an agreement on the release of Israel's abducted soldiers in Lebanon was approved.

The Israel Government thanked the UN Secretary General's mediator and the German government for their efforts in formulating the arrangement for the return of the abducted IDF soldiers.

There was much Israel public support for a prisoner exchange. Ten of thousands of cars in Israel proudly wore a bumper sticker demanding the release of the POW's. Even a rally was held in the Arab village of Kfar Kassem, where the father of a kidnapped soldier asks Hizbullah and Hamas to 'behave like human beings and set the soldiers free' Dozens of Israel Arabs participated in the rally for the release of kidnapped soldiers Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. Among the guests of honor were Israel MK Ibrahim Sarsur (Ra'am-Ta'al) and Noam Shalit, Gilad's father.

Dozens of Arabs from across the country attended the rally, which opened with an emotional meeting between an Arab family from Kfar Kassem that donated the organs of a deceased family member and the family of a four-year-old boy from Kiryat Arba whose life was saved thanks to the donation.

So where all of Israel begged for a prisoner swap, no one ever expected that Samir Kunter was going to be among the Islamic terrorists released. In April 1979 Kunter led a raid into northern Israel from Lebanon.

 

Kuntar and three other members of his terror team entered Israel in a rubber boat. They shot dead an Israel policemen who had spotted them and then stormed into a residential building in the northern Israel town of Nahariya They then took hostage an Israel and his four-year-old daughter, whom they took back to the beach.

They group was intercepted by Israel police and soldiers and in the ensuing shootout two of Kuntar's squad and a second Israel policeman were killed.

Kuntar shot the the father of the 4-year-old girl in the back, and drowned him in the sea to ensure his death. He then repeatedly smashed the head of the struggling four-year-old girl with his rifle butt, until she was dead. A policewoman witnessed the act and the young girls mother confirmed it.

Kuntar was captured and sentenced to five life terms and another 47 in years in prison.

In jail, he married an Arab-Israeli woman and secured a degree in sociology at a Tel Aviv college, studying from his prison cell. He also held a number of hunger strikes in jail.

Kunter in a letter to his family wrote 'If I were to spend another 20 years in prison, I will not write an apology letter for the Nasser (Nahariya terror operation), because the struggle continues."

Once it became apparent that Kunter was among five Hizbullah terrorists as well as an unspecified number of Palestinians, blood began to boil in Israel. The exchange was opposed by the chiefs of Israel's intelligence community.

In a report titled "Hizbullah's Triumph: The Long-Term Implications of Prisoner Exchanges," authors Justus Reid Weiner and Diane Morrison argued that the exchange of key Hizbullah and Palestinian terrorists for the bodies of two Israel soldiers would encourage the abduction of Israelis.

"By exchanging prisoners with the proxy organizations as if they were law-abiding states, Israel can be seen as upgrading the status of the organizations' unlawful combatants from terrorists and war criminals," the report said.

But is Samir Kunter really a free man today, wearing his new Hezbollah commando uniform in Beirut?

Security analysts told the INA that Kunter was safe in prison.

"Now that he is out and in a foreign Arab country actually wearing the uniform of a terror organization, there is no reason not to believe that the Mossad will pay him a visit."

Many in the Israel security establishment see the Mossad taking the same action as they did following the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre where Islamic terrorists murdered eleven Israel athletes and coaches. The operation was named Operation Spring of Youth and Operation Wrath of God.

"I would be very surprised if Prime Minister Olmert did not sign an executive order assigning the Mossad to take out the 4-year-old child murderer," a security analyst said. "At a time which is convenient for the Mossad, they will blow up his car or put a bullet through his head. But first they might just ask to confirm: are you Samir Kunter who crushed the skull of a Jewish 4-year-old girl? And if this scenario does not take place then it means that Kunter is working for us and Hezbollah will then have the opportunity of killing him in a "work accident." Regardless, Kunter will never sleep well as long as he is alive."

Olmert visited the Regev and Goldwasser families this morning after the exchange took place.
"With all of Israel, I embrace and hug the families of Regev and Goldwasser in mourning," said Olmert

"My throat is dry, my eyes are tearing, and my heart goes out to the families that struggled without a sign of life, and didn't lose hope until the very last moment," Olmert said. "This is a day of removal of doubt. Certainly with regards to the fate of Udi and Eldad, may their memories be blessed, but also regarding the moral and ethical power of Israel."

"By virtue of this power we decided to return the boys, even with the heavy price of releasing a despicable murderer," the prime minister said. "Nobody else will understand what every Israeli understands well: the worry over the fate of every one of our soldiers is the glue which binds us as a society, and it this which allows us to survive in an area which is surrounded by enemies and terror organizations."

"The joys of a nation are indicative of its value-system," Olmert added. "Woe is the nation that celebrates at this hour the release of an animal that crushed the skull of an infant."

"My heart, on this day is with the Goldwasser and Regev families," the statement concluded.

Goldwasser's father, Shlomo, in a voice of ice-edged fury, asked the Lebanese people to consider the sacrifices they made during the war sparked by Hizballah's kidnapping of Regev and his own son. "They've lost some 800 men and their entire economy, and for what? For someone who killed a four-year old? Can someone like that be called a hero? He's nothing more than a bastard."

 

The above news content was edited and SEO optimized in Israel for the Internet by the Leyden Communications Group.

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