A whispered post

What I'm about to write pains me more than I can express.  If you are superstitious, please don't read this post.  Or failing that, please read it in a whisper.

You see, there is a double edged Jewish tradition about tempting fate. 

On the one hand, we generally refrain from counting our blessings out loud (i.e. mentioning how many children we have, how old they are or how healthy and successful they are) for fear of inviting tragedy. 

But on the other hand we only dare mention the names of diseases in a whispered sotto voce (e.g. "Did you hear his mother was just diagnosed with ~cancer~?").

While we have a few tried and true formulas for sharing positive information that we believe keeps the evil eye at bay (tfu, tfu tfu)... there is no charm or talisman for dealing with bad news other than our grandparent's ridiculous stage whisper. 

So again, if you must... please read what follows in an undertone so as not to tempt the evil eye:

I'd like you to think for a moment about every kidnapping that has been perpetrated by Arabs in the last 10 or 15 years.  Think for a moment about the one commonality that all of these terrible events share.

Not getting it?  Let me help you.

The widespread availability of inexpensive, high quality home video equipment has made the kidnap video pretty much de rigueur for any terrorist group wanting to place itself on the world stage and be taken seriously.

Even the recent aborted kidnapping of an idiot American college student by Palestinian terrorists which lasted less than 12 hours included the requisite video statement/confession of the victim delivered along with the kidnapper's demands. 

The kidnap video has become the standard by which the value of the hostage is set.

Live/healthy hostage = High value hostage

Injured/sick hostage = High value hostage

Dead hostage = Low/no value hostage

In fact, these bits of amateur cinematography have become so ubiquitous that the lack of one tends to point to chilling possibilities (i.e. that the kidnap victim is incapable of making a statement).

This held true in the recent kidnapping of Eliahu Asheri (A"H).  Having been summarily executed by his captors within an hour of being taken, Asheri's value to the kidnappers remained high only so long as they could bluff the Israelis into believing that he was still alive. 

Once a few hours had passed without a video being aired by one of the Arab media outlets, it became clear to many that the chances of returning this young man to his parents alive and well had faded dramatically.  When after a day or two all the kidnappers could produce for the media was his ID card, I knew he was gone.

With this in mind, one has to admit that the lack of a hostage video in the Gilad Shalit kidnapping is fairly ominous. 

We were told early on that "a doctor had seen the missing IDF soldier and had treated his wounds".  But we weren't told much about the doctor.  In fact, we have no indication at all that this wasn't simply a deliberately misleading statement issued by the kidnappers, since all the media outlets reporting the story name their source only as "Senior Fatah member Ziad Abu A’an".

To my knowledge, no neutral third party has been allowed to see Gilad alive... and Palestinian 'sources' have proven to be remarkably unreliable and self-interested in the past.

I hate to say these words out loud, so whisper them if you must... but I am now convinced that Gilad Shalit is no longer alive.  Yesterday's 6:00AM deadline issued by the kidnappers was a desperate ploy intended to force the Israelis to pay for a product whose value they could not demonstrate.  When The deadline passed, it should have been obvious to all that the bluff had been successfully called.

What's more, I am fairly sure he died (or at very least was comatose), within an hour of being taken prisoner.  Otherwise the kidnappers would have been taunting the Israeli government with videos of their prize in order to maintain his value as a hostage.

Nothing would make me happier than to post an update to this post later saying how foolish I was, and how I should really leave intelligence analysis to the professionals.  I would love more than anything to write those words with tears streaming down my cheeks while listening to news coverage of Gilad's parents being reunited with their missing son.

But my gut tells me that the best we can hope at this point is for his parents to receive some semblance of closure by being given the opportunity to bury Gilad's body.  And even that now seems beyond the realm of possibility. 

You see, the kidnappers have now floated the name Ran Arad... a captured Israeli Air Force Navigator who is certainly dead, but whose fate remains just ambiguous enough for the Arab world to use his name to rip the scab off of Israel's wounded national psyche.  By mentioning Ran Arad and telling the press that they intend to hold Gilad in a similar indefinite limbo, what the terrorists are telling us is that he is dead... but that they won't provide us with the bandages to close the national wound his death will open.

I hope beyond hope that I am wrong.  But I honestly think that this poor unfortunate boy, Gilad Shalit, has become the new Ran Arad... a hot iron with which our enemies will now torture and demoralize the Israeli public for years to come. 

The question now is whether our government will continue to give our enemies such a powerful weapon to hold over us... or if they will set a deadline of their own.