Samir Qantar -- Hailed A Hero

Samir Qantar (pictured) was Lebanon's longest serving prisoner incarcerated in Israel. Qantar was the biggest beneficiary of a prisoner swap and the exchange of remains that has been recently completed. Samir Qantar was a young 17-year-old when he was sentenced to five life terms for committing triple murder. One of Qantar's victims was a 4-year-old child.

As I have posted previously there is no excuse for the killing of a child. This does not change when the killer is a 17-year-old youth. At 17 you already know the difference between right and wrong and you would know that killing a 4-year-old is wrong.

Qantar has returned home to Aabey, southeast of Beirut, to a hero's welcome. It would seem that Qantar's political passion and love of the struggle has not dwindled after almost 29 years in prison. In fact Qantar remains proud and has no regrets or remorse for his actions and said the following, "I feel enormous joy because I have returned to the ranks of the resistance and to my family." Not missing a beat it seems his first change of clothes was to don a Hezbollah military uniform.

Qantar is being hailed as a hero whenever his name is mentioned, Lebanese are sacrificing lambs in his honour,and people are claiming that "Samir Kantar is the son of all the Lebanese".

It is a strange move on Hezbollah's part to be quite so vocal in claiming victory and Qantar being so vocal in his pride with respect to killing a child. My guess is that Qantar will be killed in a pre-emptive missile attack or some other military strike or assassinated in some other manner.

I watched the film "Munich" recently. I suspect that as most films do some liberties were taken with the story to make it into a movie script. However, even if a smidgeon of it is true then Qantar must be wary of what is coming his way. There will definitely be no peace for Qantar and he will not grow old while he is being stalked by Mossad. Sooner or later the game will be up. He might have in fact been safer in an Israeli prison.

I reiterate, child killers like Qantar are not heroes. It makes no difference whether he committed this crime as a 16, 17, or 30 year old. There is no honour in killing children and the murder of children must not be what the resistance is about!

The Israel -- Hezbollah Prisoner Swap is Underway

Hezbollah really needs to spend some money and recruit some good public relations people, as they simple have absolutely no idea on how to handle a significant event! In an earlier post I alluded to the cruelty of playing up the possibility that the two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, that Hezbollah was required to hand over under the deal, were alive. The reality, as most people expected, was finally confirmed today.

Hezbollah handed over two black coffins today to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The ICRC then drove the coffins into Israel. The remains were confirmed to be those of Goldwasser and Regev (photo by Issam Kobeisy / Reuters).

The second reason Hezbollah needs some PR people is this statement by one Mr. Safa who was operating as the spokesperson for Hezbollah, "We are now handing over the two imprisoned Israeli soldiers, who were captured by the Islamic resistance on July 12, 2006, to the ICRC." He then went on with this, "The Israeli side will now hand over the great Arab mujahid (holy warrior) ... Samir Qantar and his companions to the ICRC." I am using PR people here in the manner that most organizations would use them for crisis or message management.

There is nothing holy about Samir Qantar. Qantar is a cold-blooded child killer, plain and simple. His release is sure to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of many Israelis. To rub salt into this wound Hezbollah has a wide range of festivities planned to celebrate the release. There should be little doubting why some countries want to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization when you celebrate child killers as holy warriors or mujahideen. Any legitimacy that an organization might have had is lost when it glorifies child killers.

I wonder who is getting the best deal in all this prisoner swapping and the returning of remains?

Israel and Hezbollah -- Prisoner Swap

This prisoner swap might not be one for the ages but it is an interesting step for both Israel and Hezbollah to be taking at this point in time. The UN-brokered deal calls for Israel to release prisoners, chief among them, Sami Kuntar, in exchange for two captured Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who have been presumed killed after their capture in 2006.

The deal is not a done deal as it still requires Lebanon to be forthcoming with information relating to an Israeli airman, Ron Arad, who was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. Lebanon has indicated that it is willing to do this but as yet has not released a final report as promised.

Kuntar is a killer. He might be a hero to Hezbollah, but to just about everyone else he is a cold-blooded killer. He shot and killed an Israeli man in front of his four-year old daughter and then smashed the young girls head against a rock with the butt of his rifle and then tossed her body into the sea.

I do not care if you feel you are fighting a war of liberation or freedom or whatever, there is simply no justification for killing children. This was not collateral damage, but rather a pre-meditated attack in response to the signing of an Israeli - Egyptian Peace Accord at Camp David in 1978. This signing probably cost Anwar el-Sadat his life as well several years later in 1981.

Kuntar at the time was working on the orders of the Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF). The PLF tried to secure Kuntar's release in 1985 and orchestrated the hijacking of the Italian Cruise ship the Achille Lauro. The PLF were unsuccessful in this attempt. It seems where the PLF has failed Hezbollah may have succeeded.

Interestingly, the Hezbollah leadership are playing up the idea that the two Israeli soldiers might still be alive by labeling the Israeli attempts to formalize the status of the soldiers as "killed in action", speculative. If these two soldiers are not alive then this is plain and simple, cruel.

Perhaps the release of Kuntar and other prisoners is worth it to the families of the two soldiers that are to be released and to the Israeli people. I wonder how the family of Kuntar's victims feel about the pending release.

Israel and Hamas

It is interesting that when the focus or spotlight is on you in a bad way the easiest way to shift the spotlight is to demonize someone or something else. Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, has been doing it tough of late with corruption scandals swirling all around him and with allegations surfacing of his direct involvement. Hence, the warning issued by Olmert that this cease fire or truce that is scheduled to come into force on Thursday is Hamas' last chance. It seems that if Hamas does not play ball and behave then Israel is prepared to strike deep into the heart of the Gaza Strip.

In the Israeli PM's own words, the people of Gaza are "pissed off with Hamas".

Now I am not pro-Hamas. In fact I have no problem with it being labeled an extreme and fundamentalist organization. The problem as I see it is that Hamas is now a democratically elected entity. The "West", and primarily the US, severely misunderstood the social and political dynamics when there was agreement to the idea of Hamas participating in Palestinian elections.

There seems little doubt that Hamas is anti-Israel and this means, in my mind at least, that any kind of truce will be short-lived. I just do not believe that Hamas has the sort of governance control it needs to reign in the militants and stop the rocket attacks. I hope I am wrong. I would love to see genuine peace in that part of the world in my life time. Yep, the eternal optimist!

The Israeli PM has close links to Australia and has family members living in Australia. In fact his cousin is married to the Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Defence and an aunt in Sydney.

The PM has grand plans of making peace with Lebanon and Syria. The plan even includes opening an Israeli Embassy in Damascus. Now this kind of peace would significantly change the geo-political dynamic of the region for the better. However, before any of these grand plans are likely to come to fruition the PM needs to survive the corruption allegations that by all accounts have two possible outcomes; resignation or new elections.

In any event there seems to be an open invitation to the Australian PM, Kevin Rudd, to visit Israel. This comes on the heals of the Australian Federal Parliament passing a resolution that commemorated Israel's first 60 years of existence in March of 2008.

Maybe I will write more on this Middle East stuff in the future because I am an opinionated bugger on this issue!