Gilad Shalit, en israelisk soldat som suttit i Hamas fångenskap i fyra år, återkommer ofta i diskussioner om utväxling av fångar och många israeler är engagerade i fallet. Trots detta har ingen utväxling skett och förhandlingar strandar gång på gång. Använder Israel Shalits fångenskap för att rättfärdiga en fortsatt militär konflikt? Det menar Dr. Lev Grinberg, politisk sociolog.

Nedan följer hans artikel, på engelska, hämtad från Tikkun. Ursprungligen publicerades den på hebreiska hos Ynet.

Shalit: The Excuse for Israel's Policy

Lev Grinberg

Thousands of Israelis are marching everyday to commemorate four years
since Gilad Shalit's imprisonment by Hamas. They want to remind the
Government its commitment to bring back home all war prisoners. But
Shalit is just like peace: everybody wants it, but nobody is willing
to pay the price. Just like Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000 reminded
his critics what he had been willing to pay for peace – 91% of the
occupied territories and some neighborhoods in Eastern Jerusalem –
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu now tells the demonstrators marching
across Israel in support of a prisoner exchange deal that he is
willing to accede to "90%" of Hamas's demands. He explains that 100
more prisoners "with blood on their hands" must be deported, while
"Intifada symbols" such as Marwan Bargouti have to remain in prison.
And just like the public response to Barak's colossal failure in the
Camp David negotiations, which was not followed by a protest movement
supporting complete withdrawal from all occupied territories, there
has been no public demand to free all prisoners to their homes. Even
those marching today together with Gilad's parents Aviva and Noam
Shalit do not voice an unequivocal demand to pay the full price. This
popular march is "a-political" – it does not state a price. It only
expresses a wish, a longing, so that anyone can join.

Who does not want peace? Who does not want Shalit back? Who wants to
rule the Palestinians, anyway? The only problem is we don't have a
partner – it's not that we are unwilling to pay the price of
Palestinian independence. Ever since the Second Intifada and the
failure of the Camp David negotiations, both right and left shy away
from divisiveness – there is no true political discussion, not about
peace, not about war(s), and not about Shalit. Israelis and
Palestinians are trapped in an endless war, a war that will never stop
unless this attitude changes.

Unlike previous prisoner exchanges, the question of Shalit's return is
a political one. This is because Shalit, just like peace, is held by
the Palestinians, and the Palestinians have political demands. Unlike
prisoner exchanges following wars with enemies such as Egypt, Syria
and the Hezbollah, the exchange required now is just another phase in
a war that's expected to continue. This is the reason why two Israeli
governments have refused to release prisoners "with blood on their
hands". Just like the refusal to give up territory, this is motivated
by calculations towards the next violent round. If the war is bound to
go on, why hand over another 1000 professional and disciplined
officers and men? Why give up territory that will enable them to
attack Central Israel? This is vicious circle of the war discourse:
since Israel can think only in terms of war, war never ends.

In this sense, Shalit has become a weapon in Israel's propaganda war,
rather than a bargaining chip between Israel and Hamas. Just like its
predecessor, Netanyahu's government does not want Shalit back, but
only wants to prove to the Israeli public and the entire world just
how nasty Hamas is. The Israeli government does not want to recognize
Hamas, but in fact does everything in its power to leave it in control
of Gaza, besieged and isolated from the West Bank. Otherwise, God
forbid, a partner for peace might show up, and Israel would have to
pay the price. Keeping Gilad Shalit in captivity has become a peace
contraceptive.

At the heart of the issue is the Israeli government's refusal to
negotiate with Hamas. When the Hamas government was elected in January
2006, 50% of the Israeli public were in favor of negotiating with it,
but no party publicly supported it. Ever since then, three governments
have been trying to isolate Hamas internationally, and strangle it
economically by a policy of blockade, which continues to this day,
despite some recent concessions following the flotilla fiasco. Does
this serve to topple Hamas or strengthen its control? Does this reduce
the price of releasing Shalit or raise it? Shalit is the ultimate
excuse for government policy: this is how the blockade was explained
away, and this is how the bombing campaign of late 2008-early 2009
(Operation Cast Lead) was justified. It is only later that we become
disappointed, when we discover the lie, when we understand Shalit was
nothing but an excuse.

The movement in favor of Shalit's release can succeed only if it does
not remain a-political. Since fear of the next war is the reason for
not releasing prisoners, the protest movement must demand their
release as part of a non-belligerence agreement (hudna, in Islamic
discourse). Such an agreement must include the closure of tunnels
currently used to smuggle arms (as well as consumer goods) into Gaza
in return for a new economic settlement arranging for imports and
exports, safe passage to the West Bank and opening the passages under
international supervision. Only then, will the release of Gilad Shalit
mark the beginning of a peace process, rather than just another
prisoner exchange deal.

Dr. Grinberg is a political sociologist, author of Politics and
Violence in Israel/Palestine (Routledge, 2010)