‘Saving Gilad’: The days of Entebbe are over

As seen at TheMediaLine.org

Amidst the extensive media coverage of a potential prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, in which Israel would hand over hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one captured Israeli soldier, it is easy to loose sight of who holds the cards.
 
Israel controls the Gaza Strip’s airspace, land and sea borders and has an extensive intelligence network. 
 
The country is famous for a sustained string of daredevil military operations, from the rescue of over two hundred hostages in Entebbe, Uganda to the recent bombing of what is widely believed to be a Syrian nuclear site. 
 
Yet despite Israel’s military might and historic bravado, Israel does not seem to have made any military efforts to recapture its emblematic kidnapped soldier. 
 
As talks between the two sides drag on, Israeli strategic analysts discuss why.

“It’s not an easy task but it’s something that can be done and can save a lot of lives,” Uzi Dayan, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council and former deputy Chief of Staff in the Israeli army told The Media Line. “It also may be the only way to bring [Gilad Shalit] home.”

Dayan claimed the Israeli leadership does not have a contingency plan for a military rescue of Gilad Shalit.

“After three years since his capture, I can say there have been two main mistakes here,” he said. “First, we let Hamas blackmail us more and more about the price. We weren’t clear from the beginning, let them take the initiative and didn’t put all the pressure on the other side. For example at the end of the Cast Lead operation [last year’s Gaza War] we could have captured 1000 Palestinians connected to Hamas and put the pressure on the other side.”
 
“Second, Israel at least should have arrived at a feasible military plan of getting Shalit back,” Dayan continued. “I don’t think that there is a plan. If there is no plan it means that they don’t have enough information to build a plan. If they don’t have enough information to build a plan, they need to launch operations to get it, and Operation Cast Lead was their chance… But they didn’t even try.”

Dayan stopped short of outright advocating a military rescue attempt.

“Whether or not to implement this plan is a tough decision,” he said. “It depends on how dangerous it is, what chances such a plan has to succeed, what are the risks to the soldiers carrying it out and whether the immediate outcome will be the return of another eight or ten killed soldiers. 

“Sometimes it succeeds and sometimes not,” Dayan said. “But if you don’t have a military plan you can’t even evaluate whether or not it’s worth the risk and to have such a tool in your box is a major disadvantage and a sign of failure.”

Dayan argued the current deal being discussed with Hamas was fundamentally flawed. 

“I’m not against negotiating with Hamas to release Gilad Shalit,” he said. “But at the same time we should have a military plan because I’m not that sure that Hamas is going to release him and the deal currently on the table is very problematic.”

“To release so many murderers [starts] a precedent of paying such a high price for Israeli soldiers,” Dayan argued. “It creates a huge incentive to kidnap Israeli citizens and soldiers and also tells terrorists that in the end you will get away with it.”

Dr Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer at Bar Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, argued the Israeli government was never able to seriously consider a military rescue operation.

“The people who said that stopping the Gaza operation without Gilad Shalit was a failure misunderstood the war’s purpose, which was to stop the missiles,” he told The Media Line. “I’m not sure the government ever had the goal of militarily rescuing Shalit as part of the plan.”

“You have to remember that while the army must have plans, implementing those plans on the ground needs a political decision,” said Dr Kedar, who served for 25 years in Israeli military intelligence. “In that sense, there are three principal reasons Israeli political leaders have never seriously considered a military rescue.”

“First, just a couple weeks after Gilad Shalit was abducted by Hamas, two more soldiers were taken by Hezbollah,” he said. “There was not enough time to shape a plan for his rescue and then all of a sudden Israel had a war on its hands so Shalit was kind of forgotten.”

“Second, there is a recent painful precedent in the failure to rescue Nachshon Wachsman,” Dr Kedar said, referring to a botched 1994 raid in which the Israeli army’s special forces unit Sayeret Matkal, tried to recapture the kidnapped 19-year-old corporal, ending in both the commander of the special forces unit and Wachsman being killed when the door to the room he was being held in was more difficult to open than the soldiers had anticipated. “No one wants a repeat of that.”

“Finally, it has been taken for granted that Shalit is being held behind a series of booby traps that would prevent a rescue,” he said. “So why bother sitting to discuss something you assume will fail from the beginning.”

“First of all Shalit might be guarded by a minder who would kill him immediately upon a rescue attempt,” Dr Kedar said. “In addition let’s say he’s sitting with an explosive belt being operated by remote control. He also could be chained to this explosive belt, meaning it would be very hard and take a long time to extract him. In addition around him there are likely all kinds of mines and explosives that will be blown up if a rescue is attempted. Again this would kill him and his saviors, so what would be the point?”

“Nobody likes not having a military option but the alternative might be much worse, with both Gilad Shalit and a number of soldiers killed,” he said. “Also the more time passes the more security precautions Hamas takes: On the first day of his capture he was probably guarded by a guy with a gun, the second day they strapped him to an explosive belt, the third day they added a remote mechanism to the explosive belt, the fourth day they put him behind an explosive door.”

“But there are ways to release Gilad Shalit without releasing any prisoner,” Dr Kedar added, making reference to a paper he presented to Israeli political leaders on tightening the passage of goods into the enclosed Gaza Strip. “Israel could very easily declare that it will stop everything – water, electricity, medications, everything – under the slogan that ‘only Gilad Shalit will open the faucets’… we’ll see.”