Shalit Trade Continues Long Standing Israeli Policy

People have wondered why Israel was willing to release nearly 1,000 prisoners in exchange for the return of Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit who was released Oct. 18 after five years of Hamas captivity. 

The decision came from a deeply rooted philosophy of the Israel Defense Forces inspired 62 years by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Tuesday, more than 300 people learned Tuesday at an event organized by Deerfield’s Beth Keller at the . 

Sharon’s son, Gilad Sharon, spoke to the crowd about the new biography he has written relating his father’s life. He was asked by one of the people about Israel’s motivation to make what the inquirer thought was a lopsided deal for Shalit. 

“We never leave our men behind.”

“The rule is we never leave our men behind,” Sharon said. In his opening remarks Sharon told how the policy began with his father in 1948. The elder Sharon, now 83, was then a platoon commander during Israel’s War of Independence. 

With Jerusalem’s Jewish community trapped by Jordan’s Arab Legion in 1948, Gilad Sharon explained how his father led a group of soldiers to free a road into the city. He was severely wounded. Only four soldiers were alive and healthy at the end of the battle. 

At that time Israel was less than two weeks old and Ariel Sharon was a 20-year-old military officer. He had to make the hardest decision of what would become a long military career. He told the healthy soldiers to retreat. 

“It was the most difficult decision of my life,” Gilad Sharon said reading from his father’s papers. “They asked what about me. I said ‘leave me too.’ There is not a day I don’t drive by the Latrun Road and remember.” He did it often going to and from work most of his life. 

In those days when the Israeli Army was only a few weeks old, most platoons were people from the same community. Most of the people Ariel Sharon saw lying wounded on the battlefield were men he had known his entire life. 

“He knew there was nothing he could do for them,” Gilad Sharon said. “He knew how they would be butchered. He had to save the few who were alive. My father’s survival was a miracle.” 

Ariel Sharon became a career military officer rising to the rank of major general. When he joined the government, one of the positions he held before becoming prime minister was minister of defense. The memory of Latrun stayed with him. 

“That memory went on to become a rule of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces),” Gilad said. “We do not leave our men behind.” 

Sharon’s 1953 Effort Frees One Soldier

Sharon shared a story of his father’s efforts to free a single Israeli soldier captured by the Jordanians in 1953. The two nations were still technically at war and cross border raids were common place. 

“He was a paratroop commander then,” Sharon said of his father. “He was involved in secret raids to capture enough Jordanian soldiers so we could free (the Israeli).” Another trade of one for many was made. For Sharon it was simple. “We do not leave our men behind,” Gilad said. 

Gilad Sharon told a number of stories from his book about his father’s efforts as a diplomat and politician. He answered all questions asked about his father even ones questioning personal decisions made by the entire Sharon family. 

Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke on Jan. 4, 2006 while serving as Israel’s prime minister. He remains is what his son describes as a state of “minimal consciousness.” 

One person asked when the Sharon family was going to “let him go.” Gilad Sharon responded as a son about a father. He was no longer talking about a soldier or politician. 

“He is not being kept alive,” Sharon said. “We visit him every day. When he is asleep he sleeps. When it is awake he looks at me and moves a finger when I ask him to. It isn’t much but it is what it is.”