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The past few days have been rife with emotion here in Israel. The prisoner exchange, in which Israel released numerous prisoners including the infamous terrorist Samir Kuntar in return for the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, missing since June 2006, was completed yesterday. Today the two soldiers were buried. The grief over the death of the two boys is accompanied by a sense of finality and closure, allowing the families to begin the long stage of mourning and recovery. At the same time the questions in Israeli society over the prisoner exchange are only beginning. Was it worth it? There is no right answer. Many say that Israel must demonstrate to its citizens that no soldier will ever be left behind; alive or dead. In a society where everyone is supposed to enlist in the army, it is essential that the people have faith in the army’s dedication to its soldiers. Others feel differently. How many more people will Kuntar kill? Is it worth it for two, already dead, bodies to risk so much more death and destruction? These are just some of the tough questions that Israel is confronting in the wake of the prisoner exchange. Kuntar has already clearly declared his intentions to continue Imad Mugniyeh’s legacy (terrorist killed by an unclaimed car bomb earlier this year – Lebanese accuse Israel, Israel has denied involvement).

Nevertheless Israelis continue to live their lives. We arrived in Eilat this afternoon greeted by the sight of throngs of people checking into the city to celebrate the beginning of their summer holidays.

This evening we met some volunteers in the ‘Commando Friend’s program, one of the many social welfare programs in the Eilat/Eilot region supported by UJA Federation. The program sends university students out to the streets to talk to young people who prefer the streets to their homes, which are often troubled. These commando friends spend time on the streets at night talking to kids about drugs, alcohol, sex, the army and anything else they may want help with. While the commandos did not think they had the ability to revolutionize the culture of the city, they did see positive changes within individuals and recognized that they help to give these youth at risk a sense of priorities and optimism about the future.  

Afterwards we spent some time at the youth centre climbing wall, and having spent a summer working on wall climbing staff at a camp I offered to anchor some people while they climbed. On the drive home back to the hotel, Shani, a student activist who is accompanying us in Eilat, asked me if I remembered the first woman that climbed while I was anchoring. “yeah, why?” “Her son was killed in the second Lebanon War, the climbing wall was named after him”.

Despite the seeming calm on the surface, everyone has been affected by the state of insecurity in Israel. The questions about the terms of the prisoner exchange are not abstract theoretical moral questions. The decisions made regarding these questions have severe repercussions on people and their families. While no one has the answer to these questions, they must be continually asked, and the effects on real people must be analyzed, in the hope of moving towards a stronger and more secure State.