Foreign Dispatch: Israel Shows the Meaning of All for One
By Fox News Radio’s Alastair Wanklyn in Jerusalem
The helicopter circled twice. From the window, Gilad Shalit would have seen his hilltop home, olive groves, and a twisting road lined with broadcast trucks and well-wishers waving Israeli flags.
“Welcome home,” they cried.
LISTEN HERE to the sounds of cheering well-wishers:
Gathered here were mostly village residents and long-term campaigners. But it’s safe to guess that most people in Israel and the Palestinian territories were noting events this day.
More than a thousand Palestinian prisoners were being exchanged for just one Israeli; roughly half today, half later. “I am so happy,” said Shalit’s neighbor Dor Drori. “I haven’t seen him for five years.” And for all the happiness in this village, there would have been similar joy for families of the hundreds of Palestinians walking free today.
An imbalanced swap, but Israel is accustomed to that. Previous prisoner swaps with neighbors have involved hundreds of Arabs released for mostly single-digit Israelis. Just recently Israel released several hundred prisoners to Lebanon in exchange for the remains of two dead soldiers.
“It’s in our DNA,” explains one long-time journalist here. It’s an instinct to help those who help the state.
It’s a high price this time. Hundreds of the Palestinian prisoners involved are serving prison terms for terrorism and murder. Some bombed a pizzeria, a hotel, a bus; one woman lured an Israeli youth to his murder by flirting on the internet. Israel’s security service says 60 percent of such individuals after previous swaps returned to crime. Many Israelis are uneasy, but resigned.
“I think it’s very wonderful that Gilad Shalit is coming home,” says one woman I spoke to on the street in Jerusalem. “But there’s a very high price, and I don’t have an answer.” One man says: “I think it reflects very well on Israel.”
LISTEN HERE to some of Alastair Wanklyn’s reporting from outside the Shalit home in Northern Israel:
