First to Hamas’ distress.
As Yaron Blum, coordinator for POWs and MIAs in the Prime Minister’s Office, said, the recording is a “cheap and transparent manipulation.”
Both the mother of the Ethiopian Israeli being held, Avera Mengistu, and the mother of Arab Israeli in Hamas captivity, Hisham Al-Sayed, denied that the respective voice was that of their sons.
In releasing the recording that ended with the words “save me,” Hamas was going back to the playbook it used during the Gilad Schalit captivity saga. It was hoping that this recording would lead to public pressure to force the government to give in to its exorbitant price for the release of the two captives, and the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Lt. Hadar Goldin and St.-Sgt. Oron Shaul.
Hamas understands that captives in its hands represent Israel’s Achilles’ heel. The terrorist organization leveraged Israel’s sensitivity to this issue to the hilt in 2011 to free some 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Schalit, including terrorist murderers such as current Hamas head Yahya Sinwar. With indirect talks currently underway for a prisoner exchange, Hamas is trying to go back to the same well.
But, as Blum said, the plot reveals Hamas’ weakness. Despite its faux claim of “victory” in Operation Guardian of the Walls, the terrorist organization has little to show for the 11 days of fighting. It needs a concrete achievement to present its public, and a return of hundreds of prisoners – à la the Schalit deal – would do just that.
So, once again, it is playing on Israel’s emotions.
But this time Israel need not – in fact, dare not – play by Hamas rules. It needs to break the Hamas-established equation that there is no connection between the freeing of the Israelis and reconstruction of Gaza or providing it with humanitarian aid. And it needs to break the equation of wildly disproportionate prisoner swaps.
For years the Goldin family has urged the government to condition any humanitarian aid to Gaza on the release of the captives but to no avail. The government never linked the two issues, and the release of the bodies and the two Israelis never seemed to be a burning priority.
But it needs to be, and the country does have a responsibility to work tirelessly to free its kidnapped citizens, though not by paying a disproportionate price. More needs to be done, and the aftermath of Operation Guardian of the Walls provides an opportunity to do so, but to do so differently than in the past.
Israel should make clear to Hamas, their Qatari patrons, and the international community that Jerusalem is only going to allow money to flow into Gaza if the IDF soldiers’ bodies and the civilians are freed. Hamas has up until now succeeded in separating the two issues, Israel needs to stop that charade.
Hamas, undoubtedly, will demand some prisoners in return. Here, too, Jerusalem needs to break patterns of the past where captives and bodies of soldiers were returned at an excessive and unreasonable price. Despite all its bravado, Hamas wants to see Gaza rebuilt after the current campaign. That gives Israel leverage that it must use.
As to Al Jazeera’s airing of the recording without identifying who it is, how they obtained it, or making any attempt at verification, this is just another example of how the network – which is still taken seriously in some quarters – is willing to blindly do Hamas’ bidding.
Hamas wanted to air the recording to manipulate Israeli public opinion at a time when delicate negotiations are taking place – and the Qatari network readily obliged.
Broadcasting recordings of prisoners made under duress for propaganda purposes is a violation of basic journalistic ethics. When that person is mentally disabled, as is believed to be the case concerning Mengistu, that just makes something inexcusable even worse. It’s time for the world to see Al Jazeera for what it is – a propaganda tool akin to Iran’s Press TV, Russia’s RT and Turkey’s TRT.