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Aviva Shalit, mother of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
 (Yaron Kaminsky)
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Last update - 14:49 25/06/2009
Hamas fears Shalit deal would be seen as surrender
By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff
Tags: Israel News, Gaza Strip 

Let's start with the good news: Kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit is in reasonable health, according to information received by Israel recently via Egyptians who have been mediating between Israel and the kidnappers.

It is unclear whether the information came in the form of a tape or letter from Shalit or a more general message, like the one delivered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the beginning of the year.

Shalit's abduction was a joint effort by three groups: Hamas and two small partners, a faction of the Popular Resistance Committees and the Daghmush clan's Army of Islam. However, Hamas quickly took the lead, and now has Shalit in its hands, after paying the Daghmush family for him.
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Later, a rift opened between the Army of Islam, which is influenced by Al-Qaida ideology, and Hamas, after Hamas men killed some members of the Daghmush family identified with Fatah, and the Daghmush clan sought to avenge the murder of their relatives.

The one who really controls Shalit's fate is Ahmed Jabari, who heads Hamas' military wing in the Gaza Strip. In March, the Egyptians brought Jabari to Egyptian intelligence headquarters in Cairo and passed messages between him and Israeli negotiators, who were in a hotel some distance away.

There is probably no house in Gaza that has not felt the price of the kidnapping. Since Shalit was abducted, more than 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and thousands more injured; more than 10,000 homes have been destroyed; and the border crossings into Gaza have been closed.

Nevertheless, Hamas is not budging. It continues to demand all 450 of the prisoners on its list, including the planners of major suicide bombings since 1993.

After the kidnapping, Hamas promised to obtain the release of masses of prisoners, and before Operation Cast Lead last December, it promised to get the border crossings reopened. But so far, it has yet to do either. Thus a compromise on Shalit might appear as a surrender to Israel.

Egyptian mediation

Egypt has been harshly critical of Israel's handling of the negotiations.

"You kept raising the price you were willing to pay," an Egyptian source said. "As far as Hamas is concerned, you'll pay the higher price, even if it takes three more years."

Egyptian mediation has quite a few drawbacks. But no other intermediary enjoys the level of access to and information about Gaza that the Egyptians do. A senior Egyptian intelligence official who coordinated the talks in their early stages came back to Tel Aviv recently to restart the negotiations. The Egyptians say they continue to be optimistic.

Mistakes along the way

The Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service began to quarrel right after Shalit was abducted. Both sides agree that the Shin Bet warned the IDF an attack was being planned, but they disagree about how specific the warning was. Then-IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz infuriated Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin when he said there had been no warning of an abduction.

Diskin retaliated by ordering his people not to cooperate with the IDF investigation headed by Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland.

The two agencies also traded accusations over the lack of resources allocated to the search for the kidnappers, and wasted a lot of time before orders came from on high to stop arguing over the matter.

But these failures are almost negligible compared to then-prime minister Ehud Olmert's attitude toward the negotiations, beginning with his claim that Israel would not negotiate with terrorists and that Israel would exert enough pressure to make Hamas "crawl on its knees" to release Shalit.

Experts in negotiations say that in the first weeks after the kidnapping, Israel focused on a military offensive, which killed hundreds of Palestinians. That seemed more a punitive action than an attempt to bring back Shalit and may have wasted valuable time.

Criticism has also been leveled at Ofer Dekel, Israel's former chief negotiator for Shalit. His exclusive reliance on the Egyptians, the attempt to tie a Shalit deal to a long-term cease-fire, Dekel's "solo" style of operation and his poor relationship with Olmert have all come under fire.

And IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, whose strongly voiced position led the cabinet to approve a swap with Hezbollah for the bodies of two soldiers kidnapped in the north, failed to take a similar position at a key moment in the Shalit saga. That was at the end of Olmert's term, when Ashkenazi, Dekel and Defense Minister Ehud Barak all supported a deal despite its high cost. But Olmert rejected the deal in his "red lines" speech, leading to a deterioration in relations with the Shalit family and Noam Shalit's recent harsh statements against Olmert's conduct of the affair.

The current talks

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hardly be able to give less than his predecessor agreed to - 325 of the 450 prisoners on Hamas' list. Both the Egyptians and Hamas assume as much, a senior Egyptian official told Haaretz.

The main difference between the Olmert and Netanyahu eras is the present low profile of the talks. The new negotiator, Hagai Hadas, and Netanyahu, with Barak's approval, may now try to obtain quietly what they could not by making noise.

But one thing has not changed: While Israel has made ever more concessions to Hamas, the latter has barely budged from its demands in three years.

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      1.   GO GET HIM 03:01  |  A Nice Fellow 25/06/09
      2.   Free the Ketziot 450! 03:56  |  Binyamin 25/06/09
      3.   Hamas feels that even `peace` is seen as surrender 05:46  |  Nohope 25/06/09
      4.   Analysis - Analyst needed for analysts 05:48  |  Mark Lincoln 25/06/09
      5.   Hundreds of Palestinian civilians have died in Shalits name 06:08  |  Natallie Durson 25/06/09
      6.   Binyamin 06:09  |  Arie 25/06/09
      7.   Only by force 06:31  |  Angry Arab (As`ad) 25/06/09
      8.   abducted??? 06:41  |  Muskens 25/06/09
      9.   They don`t want to swallow their pride 06:48  |  MMM 25/06/09
      10.   mental illness 06:49  |  Muskens 25/06/09
      11.   For Informed Discussion --- The rules and regulations for POWs 07:15  |  C J 25/06/09
      12.   shalit 07:16  |  cohen 25/06/09
      13.   Only Obama can bring Shalit home via Saudi Plan 07:22  |  Ivar 25/06/09
      14.   Well, It Sure Beats... 08:02  |  Heather Czerniak 25/06/09
      15.   The ony road to peace is to hang tough 08:37  |  MARK KLEIN, M.D. 25/06/09
      16.   the biggest problem IS the "negotiations"! 08:40  |  eric 25/06/09
      17.   Stupid?if you mean "Muskens",I understand 09:01  |  Hastaroth 25/06/09
      18.   #6 to the so-called "cohen" 09:02  |  Hastaroth 25/06/09
      19.   Hamas are winners... 09:08  |  Eldar 25/06/09
      20.   The analysis is too simple 09:41  |  Jerrold Cohen 25/06/09
      21.   So the wheel turns. 10:21  |  Stephen. 25/06/09
      22.   Unilateral peace actions 10:27  |  Fahmi Natour 25/06/09
      23.   Distorted Arab Culture...time to grow up, boys. 10:39  |  shtarka 25/06/09
      24.   To Muskens in Nijmegen, Holland 11:43  |  Tulip from Amsterdam 25/06/09
      25.   A big 100% on the Bull Meter 12:59  |  Mark Lincoln 25/06/09
      26.   "cohen""SF" your brothers should wake up.Their pogroms failed. 13:23  |  PETER SM 25/06/09
      27.   Hamas Will Wait And See 13:46  |  Jeff Northridge 25/06/09
      28.   To Hamas, pride is a PLOY they have no pride! 14:22  |  Jeff 25/06/09
      29.   Pollard has really been pushed aside - why ? 15:43  |  Don Lary 25/06/09
      30.   there we have it again 15:45  |  oz 25/06/09
      31.   M.LINCOLN . Hamas promises and loss of face at achieving none 15:47  |  PETER SM 25/06/09
      32.   Natallie - a clue for you. 15:49  |  Binn 25/06/09
      33.   To shtarka@23 .WELL SAID ON ALL POINTS! 15:51  |  Whiskey/Bravo 25/06/09
      34.   gilad shalit 16:01  |  newyorkone 25/06/09
      35.   #12 COHEN "PERHAPS" ISN`T GOOD ENOUGH 16:38  |  *BEN JABO 25/06/09
      36.   PETER SM@26 If this person is a cohen.then I am From the Moon! 16:57  |  Kathy 25/06/09
      37.   #5 - Wow! Just clearly state your agenda... 17:30  |  Confused 25/06/09
      38.   We handled Entebbe in the day, why not go get him 17:46  |  Big Sur 25/06/09
      39.   Kidnapping was a failed plan to begin with. 17:49  |  Witness 25/06/09
      40.   Israeli doublespeak 18:37  |  Chris Linthwaite 25/06/09
      41.   #31 Chris consider yourself lucky Haaretz loves to publish you 19:00  |  Big Sur 25/06/09
      42.   Numbers... 19:43  |  Eric 25/06/09
      43.   Chris Linthwaite 20:11  |  Jennifer 25/06/09
      44.   To Eric in London.@42 Numbers...Exactly what I m thinking . 02:43  |  Whiskey/Bravo 26/06/09
      45.   To newyorkone.SHALIT.THE TERRORISTS DUG A TUNEL UNDER THE IDF 02:51  |  Whiskey/Bravo 26/06/09
      46.   Hamas responsible for 2,000 dead Palestinians 03:28  |  Gina 26/06/09
      47.   Wow Durson, you are a proudly blind piece of work 05:49  |  jj 26/06/09
      48.   Durson is Spot On 01:33  |  JJ 28/06/09
      49.   Step up Gaza 08:51  |  American 28/06/09
      50.   Don, Pollard will NEVER 09:00  |  American 28/06/09
      51.   american 49 21:34  |  canadian 04/09/09
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