Apr 3, 2013

Gilad Shalit's Involvement in his own Capture


I still like this picture of Shalit in a Chicago Bears hat
By now you must surely be aware that the account Gilad Shalit told his interrogators regarding the incident in which he was taken hostage by Hamas operatives, and subsequently held for 5 years until public pressure mounted via a campaign for his release pushed the Prime Minister to make a deal to exchange Palestinians in Israeli jails for the freedom of Shalit.

If you have not read Shalit's version of the incident, you should.

I don't want to criticize Gilad Shalit at this point for his lack of action in preventing his capture. Shalit has suffered enough, during his 5 years of captivity and with whatever trauma he will have to suffer for the rest of his life, and I am confident he did not intentionally try to be captured, and he did not sabotage the IDF tank or position at the time.

All I will say is that not everyone in the army, in any army, is a hero, and not everyone acts with extreme bravery under difficult circumstances. He failed, he was captured, he did not put up a fight. Hopefully the army will analyze what happened and figure out better protocol to prevent such incidents in the future.

Israel paid a high price for his release. Perhaps the price paid was even too high. Despite the doomsday predictions as to what would be the result of releasing so many high profile terrorists, the Israeli security forces have been able to keep things under control. Still, Israel will also hopefully have reevaluated the policy on hostage negotiation and figure out a method to obtain the release of captives without paying ridiculously high prices. Should the high price paid be any factor considering the revelation of the conditions surrounding Shalit's capture? I think not. What's done was done, Shalit was not guilty of anything more than cowardice and perhaps a few army regulations such as abandoning a weapon, and he has suffered plenty as a result.





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3 comments:

  1. JackApril 03, 2013 7:10 PM

    I would agree with that. Some people do well under duress and others don't. Whether he should have fought back or not is immaterial now.

    He gave up years of his life and has to live with whatever that entails.

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  2. shmildaApril 04, 2013 2:26 AM

    I agree. One potential lesson is that done parole will just not do well under the intense stress of battle. Hopefully in the future, the army will do a better job of placing them away from combat.

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  3. MiriamSApril 04, 2013 9:48 AM

    By his account, not one of the 4 soldiers in the tank responded appropriately: the first two (one a commander) jumped out of the safe tank into teeny-weeny sniper fire to be shot, Gilad leaped out and surrendered, and the fourth man did not alert the surrounding forces either to the sniper fire or the soldiers who left the tank and were exposed on the field.

    Is this what happens when army service is compulsory - the training can't be too rigorous because not all boys can take it, but when they aren't cutting it we still have to let them finish their service in positions of risk?

    Was this their first time in the field? How can the army better prepare its soldiers for the shock of real war?

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