A Guest Post by Dr. Harold Goldmeier

Hamas and the Israel decided it is time to settle terms for the release of Gilad Shalit. Why now after years of negotiations and countless negotiators? What happened to push the deal forward?

The Israeli soldier was kidnapped five years ago. Hamas fighters either sneaked across the border from Gaza or tunneled underground to the Israeli side of the border and captured Shalit. He was held in a dungeon with little exposure to other people, to sunlight, and had no contact with Red Cross representatives or Shalit’s family. Occasionally, Hamas paraded him before cameras to demonstrate that Israel is not an all powerful a foe, and that Hamas was keeping him alive. That is important, because Shalit is the first captive publicly returned alive. The Israelis feared Shalit’s days were numbered, as negotiations dragged on year after year, and his appearance upon release prove their fears to be well founded.

Hamas held strong to its peremptory demands for the release of thousands of prisoners from Israeli jails, especially all the women, regardless of their complicity in the murder of Israeli civilians. Palestinian prisoners get regular visits from Red Cross officials, sports and exercise, many have cell phones, and family visits. Israel refused to free terrorists with civilians’ blood on their hands or easing the blockade of Gaza, while Shalit remained in captivity. Israel demanded Hamas crackdown on rockets firing from Gaza into Israeli cities. There were reports over the years that third parties like the U.S. might release Jonathan Pollard, or some Arab and European countries might release some of their prisoners to expedite a swap. Negotiations kept failing.

Complicating matters, it was rumored that Egypt’s former leader Mubarak and the Palestinian Authority’s Abbas steadfastly opposed Israeli concessions that would aggrandize Hamas’ power and prestige in the Arab streets. Friends and relatives of Israel’s victims oppose this and all previous deals for Shalit’s release wanting justice and fearing freed terrorists will kill Israelis again.

The agony of a kidnapped Jew wore on the people of Israel and Jews around the world. Every day, media reported on his captivity and of his parents’ struggles to keep pressuring the government to bring Gilad home. Eventually, two-thirds of Israelis came to favor a prisoner release for his freedom. The Israel Defense Forces ethos is to never leave a soldier behind. Finally, and not be given short shrift, is the faith of the Jewish people who prayed daily for Gilad’s release. There is a religious obligation of every Jew to pray, pay ransom, and do whatever else possible to ensure the safe return of a Jew still alive, being held captive: twice each week they beg God from the entire family of Israel, for those who are delivered into distress and captivity, whether they are on sea or dry land for mercy on them to be removed from distress to relief, from darkness to light, from subjugation to redemption, now speedily and soon.

These are some of the reasons and conditions that readied a deal to be made now. Politically, Israel foresees the election of a Muslim Brotherhood dominated government in Egypt that might eviscerate the cold peace Israel and Egypt have enjoyed for over three decades. Europe is preoccupied with the looming economic collapse of so many economies on their continent that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are just too hoary and distracting. Israeli leaders believe that President Obama played his strongest hand threatening a U.S. veto at the U.N. in the face of Arab anger for Palestinian statehood effectively diminishing its influence to force the Palestinians to do anything. Israel and Hamas awoke to an opportunity handed them by the Palestinian Authority when Abbas refused to hearken to the pleas of Hamas, Israel, U. S., and European leaders, not to request statehood at the U.N. for Palestine.

Hamas leaders were furious at Abbas for institutionalizing the two-state solution through U.N. legitimacy, thereby legitimizing the State of Israel as a Jewish state. President Abbas came to stand center stage with a tough speech at the U.N. podium; he was hailed as a founding father, a hero to his intellectual sympathizers, a leader with vision and guts. He returned home to his picture on banners, throngs of joyous Palestinians singing his praises from Ramallah to Detroit. Palestinian journalist Bassem Barhoum effusively predicted Abbas had nudged Arafat’s legacy to the side establishing his own legacy in Palestinian history books.

Abbas stuck it to them all, especially Hamas, at a time when Kristen Chick, writing in The Christian Science Monitor, reported that the popularity of Hamas “has fallen to a new low due because of its opposition to a bid for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.” Its fundamentalist Muslim ideology is not popular at home. Hamas’ high taxes on its people are oppressive. Gazans endure poverty, because Hamas holds out for the destruction of Israel rather than coexisting with her. West Bank Palestinians enjoy economic benefits and a high standard of living. Hamas, reports Chick, is down in the dumps of political respectability, and “is steadily losing support among Gaza's 1.6 million residents after winning elections in 2006 and violently ousting its secular rival, Fatah, the following year.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed his anger at President Abbas for his mendacity in taking his case to what Netanyahu called the House of Liars. Israel has few friends in the U.N., because of what Harry Truman called that dirty three letter word—oil. At the U. N., Abbas refused again to recognize Israel as a Jewish state or negotiate without preconditions. Netanyahu took it all that personally, and in his speech following that of Abbas, the Prime Minister observed that Abbas comes before the U.N. “armed only with (Palestinian’s) hopes and dreams.” Then his anger and cynicism were revealed: “Yeah, hopes, dreams and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran, not to mention the river of lethal weapons now flowing into Gaza from the Sinai, from Libya, and from elsewhere.”

The timing of a deal was just right. Israel got Shalit back alive making Netanyahu a leader standing tall to Israelis and world Jewry. Hamas took the wind out of Abbas’ sails; the green and white flags of Hamas dominated the streets in Gaza and West Bank cities; the President of the P.A. did not even appear when over a thousand Palestinian prisoners returned to Gaza and West Bank cities, and most of those released were Hamas members with few Fatah loyalists having been released. Hamas will never miss an opportunity to outshine the P.A. What better way than to boost the prestige of the enemy of my enemy?

Hamas is celebrating, but they accomplished what the P.A. failed to do. Netanyahu persuaded his recalcitrant Cabinet to exchange a thousand for one. Israel welcomed Shalit home with warmth and thankfulness. The most joy, however, permeates the government offices of Hamas and the Knesset. Mr. Abbas and his supporters might now understand the popular American expression: revenge is a dish which people of taste prefer to eat cold.