Does the elimination of Marwan Issa guarantee us that Israel's far reach will catch all the terrorists wherever they are, and therefore there is no fear of releasing any terrorist in exchange for the return of the hostages, even those whose hands are covered in blood?
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"I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil" – the promise that Israel will eliminate the last of the terrorists is based on the operation "Wrath of God" for the elimination of the planners of the attack at the Munich Olympics in 1972.
The success of the operation is more PR than God's vengeance. Even though it was portrayed as a brilliant operation for those days and depicted heroically in Steven Spielberg's film "Munich", it took seven years – and several expensive and embarrassing failures – for Israel to eliminate Ali Hassan Salameh, the "Red Prince" and the mastermind behind Munich. Salameh's commander, the head of the Black September organization, Mohammad Daoud Odeh, was not only saved from the Wrath of God squads, but was allowed to live in Ramallah following the Oslo Accords. Odeh, who did not regret until the end of his life, declared the massacre in Munich - an attack in which Israeli hostages were tortured and beheaded - as a great victory for Palestine, one that would be repeated.
Another example is the Schalit deal in which Saleh al-Arouri was released. Not much time had passed since his release, and Al-Arouri began commanding Hamas in the West Bank and carried out murderous attacks. When he became wanted by Israel, he fled to Turkey. He opened a headquarters there and managed the array of attacks from there. The most famous and cruel of them was the kidnapping of the three teens, Naftali Frankel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah and their murders. As long as he was in Turkey, Israel refrained from killing him.
An attack in Turkey, a member of NATO and maintaining a level – and even the lowest – of relations with Israel, is impossible. It was only when he made the mistake of his life and arrogantly visited Lebanon, that Israel laid hands on him. It took ten years, during which al-Arouri spilled too much blood.
Yahya Sinwar was also released in the Schalit deal. Until Oct. 7, for unclear reasons that brought the terrible disaster upon us, Israel refused to eliminate him. Now it is too late. Unlike Marwan Issa, who came and went in the tunnels, Sinwar does not take his nose out of the burrow and surrounds himself with hostages who serve as a human shield. When he'll leave Gaza as a condition for the return of the hostages and hide in Qatar, Israel will not carry out an operation there to eliminate him for the same reasons as Turkey.
He won't be the only one to get immunity. Mohammed Deif, whom Israel has repeatedly failed to eliminate, and Khaled Mashaal, whose embarrassing elimination attempt cost us the release of Ahmed Yassin and 70 other terrorists, will go with him to Qatar. They will spend their days safely and peacefully in this terror-supporting country. We should not live in an illusion that those who brought Oct. 7 upon us will ever pay the price.
If we agree to release the senior terrorists and mass murderers in accordance with Hamas's demand – at least we will do so with our eyes open. We will know that we will not be able to revenge the perpetrators of the atrocity. That what the Israeli government is conducting now is all we will get, and what the terrorists are extracting from us now is what they will be allowed to keep.
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