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Should Israel Release Samir Kuntar

In 1979, Samir Kuntar, then 16 years old, held an Israeli family hostage, kidnapped the young father and four year old daughter, shot the father dead at the beach, and stoned the young girl to death. Back in the family's home, the mother and 2 year old daughter hid. To keep the 2 year old girl quiet, the mother put her hand over her daughter's mouth, accidentally smothering her to death.

That was the fate of Danny Haran, his wife Smadar, and their two daughters, Einat and Yael.

Three years ago in a Washington Post column, Smadar Kaiser - she remarried and has two daughters - expressed her opposition to Kuntar's release. She wrote, in part:

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat. They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.

Kuntar continues to express pride in the "military operation." His family set up a web site in which it writes about his success in infiltrating the "settlement" of Nahariya (Nahariya is a northern Israeli city) and in killing 5 Israelis during the "operation."

Israel has refused to release Kuntar in previous prisoner exchanges, but has indicated that it is willing to release him now as part of a deal for the two IDF soldiers held hostage by Hezbollah.

I have been struggling with whether Israel should release Kuntar if it is necessary to do so to gain the freedom of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

On one hand, the cruel Arab enemy will not hesitate to keep Goldwasser and Regev hostage forever, subjecting them to the same terrible fate as the hostages from the first Lebanon War. Israel owes a debt to its soldiers and must seek their freedom.

On the other hand, releasing murderers is both immoral and, for all the obvious reasons, is the best way to encourage further acts of terrorism.

I don't have an answer.
posted on 9/04/2006