A clear message to Israel

Last week, Israel agreed to hand over five Lebanese prisoners, including Sameer Al Kantar who was convicted to serve 542 years in prison of which he has served only 30 years! This is great news for many Lebanese and Arabs. It is a great victory for Hezbollah, but what is the price that Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, is ready to pay for the long awaited deal that he has been promising his Lebanese citizens and Arab supporters? What Israel has asked is the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev who were captured by Hezbollah in July 2006. This event sparked the 33-day war on Lebanon.

The main element of the deal will be known in maybe a week's time, as per the announcement made by both Israel and Hezbollah. It is definitely not the swapping of bodies of Israeli soldiers with the release of five Hezbollah prisoners. The Israelis have described Al Kantar as the most notorious criminal who have worked against the state of Israel. The bizarre indication about the whole deal is the recklessness with which Israeli leaders have handled the issues that are facing their state in the past three years. Added to this is their carelessness in protecting the interests of their nation.

Following the Israeli Cabinet's approval for the deal last week, Israeli leaders proved once again that they lack any level of strategic thinking. They also proved to the Arabs and to the rest of the world that force is the only language they understand and abide by.

Why we must come to this conclusion? Let me explain.

First of all, let us remind ourselves with the fact that the current deal, although it is a big victory for Lebanon and Hezbollah, is not happening for the first time. It has been done twice in the past few years with the very same party which Israel tags as a terrorist organisation. But, why should it have taken the Israeli leaders a full scale war, in which thousands of rockets were launched on Lebanese cities and scores of soldiers and civilians were killed, in order to come up with a similar deal that had been done in the past?

Let us refresh our memories to the events before the 2006 war. On the eve of the 2004 prisoner exchange, Hezbollah announced that it has agreed with Israel - through German mediators - to continue the exchange of remaining Lebanese and Arab prisoners in return for Hezbollah conducting a comprehensive investigation into the fate of the Israeli pilot, Ron Arad. At the time of the announcement, Hezbollah had no chip to bargain with, except its commitment to conduct an inquiry on Arad. In principle, Israel deem not fit this gesture from Hezbollah to require it to release Al Kantar and hand over the bodies of prisoners who had died in their custody. This is what the Hezbollah were demanding at that time too.

On the other hand, Nasrallah, who promised the Lebanese that he would do all he could to free Al Kantar could not keep his promise because Israel showed no interest in the price that he was willing to pay. The result, Nasrallah decided to collect more chips to bargain with Israel. They were Goldwasser and Regev.

The rest of the story is known. Over 1,300 Lebanese, in addition to more than 100 Israelis were killed, in a war that tilted the balance of power in the region and gave Hezbollah a place on the negotiation table to discuss a deal!

Today, the Israelis have every right to ask their leaders the reason for Israel to strike a deal with Hezbollah when it had refused to so three years ago and the reason for launching a war against Lebanon which gave Hezbollah the upper hand in dictating its terms to the Jewish state? These questions are quite reasonable, but the Israeli leaders have no logical answers for them. Their answers border on arrogance, stupidity and lack of strategic thinking.

Cannot rely on firepower

The exchange of Lebanese prisoners next week should offer Israelis a lesson that they cannot hold the region and the rights of the Arabs as ransom to their arrogance. They cannot rely any more on their firepower to ignite fires in the region. If today, Israel accepted to return Al Kantar after a war, how many wars will it take it to return the Sheba'a Farms? For that matter, how many kidnapped soldiers will it accept to return the other seven Lebanese villages in Kfar Shuba? This are questions that many Arabs and Israelis ask at this stage, including the leaders of Hezbollah. And finally, how many people will have to die from both sides before Israel stop violating Lebanese airspace?

Israel, which has celebrated its 60th anniversary two months ago, is passing through a critical moment of its history - a moment that will decide the future of Israel and the whole region. The Jewish state which is busy in digging up the graves of the Lebanese martyrs in order to hand over their remains to Hezbollah before the deadline, has to apply the same yardstick to its conflict with Hamas in Gaza and in the West Bank and elsewhere.

The lesson of the current Hezbollah-Israel agreement is that the Jewish state cannot survive without peace with its neighbours and cannot categorise any Arabs as terrorists before it first stop terrorising its neighbours.

If the exchange of prisoners, which will coincide with the second anniversary of the meaningless July 2006 war against Lebanon, failed to offer Israelis with a useful lesson; I and many people in the world, would have a big doubt about the future on Israel.

Charles Darwin once said: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change." This is exactly what Israel needs to understand. I hope it will do.