Bitter exchange

Calgary Herald
Published: Sunday, July 20, 2008

No words can express the revulsion the civilized world feels for the hero's welcome given Samir Kuntar by Hezbollah upon his exchange for two Israeli soldiers killed in Israel's 2006 war with Lebanon. Kuntar spent 29 years in jail for a stomach-churning crime he committed in 1979 in Nahariya, Israel, as a member of the Palestinian Liberation Front.

During a raid on the town, Kuntar forced Danny Haran and his daughter, Einat, 4, to march to the nearby beach. After shooting Haran in the head, Kuntar bashed Einat's skull with his rifle butt. Haran's other daughter, Yael, 2, also died -- accidentally suffocated by her mother, Smadar, who was trying to keep her quiet as they hid during the attack. Smadar told the Washington Post in 2003 she would never forget "the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades." When Kuntar was offered for exchange in 1984 for Israeli POWs in Lebanon, Smadar convinced then-defence minister Yitzhak Rabin not to do it, declaring, "the blood of my family was as red as the POWs." She said the exchange should involve a terrorist who was not as cruel as Kuntar.

That should have been the rule this time, too. Sadly, it wasn't. Even sadder was Lebanon's declaration of a national holiday to celebrate Kuntar's return, along with his speech thanking God for his release. Not only is the blood of Smadar's family as red -- it has stained Lebanon's international image in the aftermath of such a shameful celebration.