When I was growing up, the Israelis — particularly their army, special forces, and intelligence service — were thought of as supermen. They could do anything. They could find a Nazi in the obscurest beer hall in Bavaria, eliminate him, and never disturb the froth on his beer. They would bus some tables for the barmaids, on their way out.
Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held hostage by Hamas for four years now? Why can’t they go get him? Locate him and extract him? Those are naïve questions, of course. If they could, they would have. The real world is not James Bond. Moreover, they might be able to get Shalit dead, but it would be harder to get him alive. Still . . . the questions may occur to one.
In related news, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, based in Damascus, has made a statement on the occasion of the four-year anniversary of Shalit’s captivity: “We aren’t satisfied with Shalit only, and, God willing, the freedom fighters will succeed in kidnapping other soldiers.” You can find that gem in this article.
Just in case you forgot what Hamas was (and is) . . .
By the way, I’ve just done a piece for the magazine about the Progress party in Norway — that country’s Reaganite, Thatcherite, Goldwaterian party. The “Progs” are strongly pro-Israel, unlike the other parties in Norway (to put it very mildly). Do you know that the Norwegian government was the first outside the Islamic world to recognize Hamas? Charming, huh?
One more bit of news, to go with Meshaal in Damascus: The dictator of Syria, Bashar Assad, has been visiting Hugo Chávez in Caracas. In honor of the visit, Chávez made a statement: “Arab civilization and our civilization, the Latin American one, are being summoned in this new century to play the fundamental role of liberating the world, saving the world from the imperialism and capitalist hegemony that threaten the human species. Syria and Venezuela are at the vanguard of this struggle.” (For an Associated Press report, go here.)
When I think of Syria, Venezuela, Iran, and others in their band, I think of a phrase that has been thought of before: “axis of evil.” Hard to improve on.