Prisoner Exchange

My stint in the Lebanon in 2006 was sort of brought to its final conclusion with today's exchange of prisoners and bodies. As readers of the blog will know my short term contract with the British Council and the UNRWA teaching methods to Palestinian English teachers was terminated suddenly when Olmert launched his war against the Lebanon. The pretext was the two Israeli soldiers, who were captured by the Hezbollah, there were to be no negotiations. The story of the 2006 war is known and if Olmert's objective was to force the release of the two soldiers the catastrophic manner in which he failed to achieve that objective is also well documented. Today, the bodies of the two soldiers were exchanged for five Lebanese prisoners and tomorrow the remains of 199 Palestinian and Hezbullah fighters exhumed over the past week will be handed over.
The exchange is being hailed as a victory for the Hezbollah and it is and I am left asking myself why the Israelis didn't negotiate after their capture in 2006. The reason, of course, was that their capture was used as a pretext for other very Machiavellian aims. In trying to achieve those aims 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, were to lose their lives, including 28, fourteen of which were children, when the Israelis for no apparent reason bombed the town of Qana. One wonders if when Qana was being bombed the Israeli captives were still alive and one might further speculate as to the how those guarding them might have reacted if they were.
The picture shows the Lebanese prisoners who were exchanged for the two dead Israelis. In the middle Samir Kuntar who was convicted of of murdering three Israelis: an Israeli policeman, a 31 year-old man, and his 4-year-old daughter and whose release is particularly resented in Israel.