Feiglin: If I'm captured, don't negotiate my release
Hardline Likud member sends letter to Defense Minister Barak, says 'we must not buy one person's freedom in exchange for risking the lives of many and encouraging additional abductions'
"I instruct you that if, God forbid, I am ever kidnapped or taken captive by Arab terror organizations, not to negotiate my release," he wrote, adding that "this order is the product of a sound mind."
In the letter, Feiglin mentioned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, who is jailed in the United States. "Twenty-five years ago, Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard took shelter from his pursuers inside the Israeli Embassy in Washington. In accordance with an order issued by the Shamir government, then-Israeli Ambassador Elyakim Rubinstein handed him directly over to his persecutors.
"Since then and to this day, Jonathan has been imprisoned under disgraceful conditions. Israel, which sent him and for which Jonathan sacrificed his life, has done and is doing all in its power to keep him in prison and see him die there."
He added that every time the possibility had been raised that Pollard would be released as part of a prisoner swap "and exchanged for one arch-murderer or another, Jonathan had rushed to issue a statement that he opposes any such deal.
"What our betrayed hero who is rotting in his cell understands, must be understood by any Israeli citizens as a free person. We must not buy one person's freedom in exchange for risking the lives of many and encouraging additional abductions."
Feiglin wrote that in the past few years no living soldiers have been released as part of exchange deals. "After visiting his cell several times, I have realized that in the 25 years of ongoing betrayal against Jonathan, the Israeli leadership has lost the moral infrastructure in the name of which it sends its sons to endanger themselves and in the power of which it can also bring them home.
"And indeed, ever since the betrayal against Jonathan and to this day, Israel has failed in returning one captured soldier alive," he stated.
'Simple actions not carried out'
Feiglin went on to mention Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped into the Gaza Strip 1,204 days ago.
"The Israeli government has refrained from carrying out the simple and most required actions for Gilad Shalit's release," he accused. "Hamas, which at first avoided admitting that it was the kidnapper, understood quite quickly that Israel's leaders would not endanger themselves with international arrest warrants and is no longer afraid to claim full responsibility for this act. Thousands of its detainees in Israel are getting the royal treatment and conditions no Israeli detainee can even dream of."
According to Feiglin, Israel should have compared the arrest conditions of Hamas prisoners to those of Shalit. "No visits, no information, no sunlight. All Hamas leaders should have become the targets of kidnappings and assassinations. The entire supply of money, weapons, cement, fuel and electricity from Israel should have stopped.
"These basic actions, and many others, which could have led to Shalit's swift release, are not being carried out because the Israeli leadership fears its own fate. The only way left to Israel's leaders to please both the mothers and the world is the way of surrender and dispatching thousands of murderers to our doorsteps."
Feiglin wrote that "it's clear that the loss of vision and leadership which led to these releases greatly encouraged those who seek our souls. The wave of terror and kidnappings which broke out following the release of thousands of terrorists does not fit what we've known in the past by any standard."
He elaborated on what terrorist releases have led to in the past. "The Jibril Agreement led directly to the first intifada. This led to a mass release of terrorists in the Oslo Accord and to the suicide bomber fashion, which followed. The State of Israel has sunk itself inside fences and guards, but all this is comparable to pain killers in the face of spreading cancer.
"No fence can stop the rocket weapons and it seems that the weakness of the Israeli leadership in the face of terror organizations has been well internalized by a distant and must more dangerous circle of enemy states. Why should Iran's leader be afraid if the Hamas leader feels safe?"
In conclusion, Feiglin wrote, "In this situation, the responsible Israeli citizen is faced with one of two choices: One – to come to terms with the described process and wait for the blow that will terminate this historic episode called 'The State of Israel'. The other option is that, like in past wars, the simple soldiers will know how to save the state from its leaders' failures, as today, we, the civilians and the simple soldiers order that no negotiations be held for us."
According to Feiglin, combat soldiers and commanders have notified him that they will not hesitate to join in the request not to have them released by negotiations if they fall captive.
