Trading prisoners — Sharon enters an ethical minefield

jerusalem | Seldom have Israeli Cabinet ministers faced a more acute moral and political dilemma than the current prisoner-

exchange deal with Hezbollah.

That proposal, which the 23-member Cabinet approved Sunday by a one-vote margin, forced ministers to weigh the conflicting interests of several Israeli families, put a price on the life of a kidnapped Israeli citizen — and consider the long-term price that all Israelis may yet have to pay.

Now the government may have another decision to make: Hezbollah is demanding that those released include Samir Kuntar, the terrorist from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who murdered an Israeli family in a 1979 attack that shocked Israel.

Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, claims Israel promised to release Kuntar and that without him the deal is off.

Israeli officials say they never promised to free Kuntar — and that despite their eagerness for a deal, Israel, too, has red lines that it won't cross.

"Regarding Kuntar, who killed an Israeli family, from our standpoint this is a principle: We have not freed Palestinians, or nationals of other countries, with blood on their hands," Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said.

Regardless of whether Kuntar ends up scuttling the deal, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon expended a tremendous amount of political capital for a deal that involved complex moral considerations and provides insight into the Israeli leader's core values.

Citing the principle that you don't leave dead or wounded soldiers in the field, some ministers backed the deal, which includes kidnapped Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three dead Israeli soldiers.

Others, making the same argument, opposed the deal because it doesn't include captured air force navigator Ron Arad, or even information on Arad's fate.

Under the terms of the deal, Israel will release 400 Palestinians and 20 Lebanese prisoners and hand over the remains of dozens of Lebanese militiamen in return for Tannenbaum and the bodies of the three soldiers abducted by Hezbollah in October 2000.

The Cabinet debate pitted two cardinal principles against each other: Part of the raison d'etre of a Jewish state is that it serve as a guardian of the Jewish people and, as such, does all it can to bring back captured Israelis alive. On the other hand, with the state engaged in a relentless struggle against terrorism, most Israelis strongly believe they shouldn't give in to terrorists because it will only encourage more attacks.

Ministers arguing against the deal emphasized its disproportionality, with Israel releasing more than 400 prisoners for just one living Israeli.

Then there was the question of Arad, who has become a national icon. Tannenbaum, the one live Israeli in the deal, is said to be an inveterate gambler who was lured into captivity under dubious circumstances regarding a possibly shady business deal.

So why is Sharon intent on going through with a deal so obviously flawed?

For one, he is not holding out for Arad because he apparently believes the airman is dead. There has been no reliable information on Arad since 1988, and Sharon is convinced that, were he alive, his captors would long since have made demands of Israel in return for his release.

Sharon decided not to harm the chances of saving Tannenbaum by holding out for the presumably dead Arad.

"You must vote for this deal to save a living Israeli," Sharon told the Cabinet. "To leave him there is to let him die.'

Tannenbaum's character, in Sharon's view, is immaterial: If it turns out that Tannenbaum broke the law, Sharon believes that he should be punished upon his return to Israel, not by Hezbollah.

Leslie Susser is the diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Report.