Putting one family above the nation

Knesset members who opposed the ransom deal for Gilad Schalit nevertheless

acceded to his family’s request to keep silent until the deal was

concluded.

On October 21, for instance, former MK Tzachi Hanegbi, of

Kadima, wrote the following in these pages:

Two days later, Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni announced

that she, too, opposed the Schalit deal, believing that it undermined Israel’s

deterrence and strengthened Hamas, but kept silent until it was concluded at the

request of Gilad’s father, Noam.

Livni and Hanegbi are almost certainly

not alone; many politicians, journalists and other public figures likely made

the same choice for the same reason. And I can understand their motives, because

I, too, received that heartrending phone call from Zvi Schalit, after publishing

a column in this paper in 2009 opposing the deal as it stood then. It’s very

hard to say “no” to a thoroughly decent man going through hell and begging you

not to add to his agony. And while I couldn’t retract what I’d already

published, I ended the conversation thinking that had he called before I wrote

the article, I might well have decided there were enough other things to write

about; I didn’t need to pour salt in the Schalit family’s wounds. Nevertheless,

Hanegbi and Livni were wrong to let their compassion overrule their judgment.

Livni herself gave the best argument for why.

“The people of Israel

forced the government to free Gilad Schalit,” she charged, correctly, when she

finally broke her silence. But did she really expect the people to do otherwise

when they were deluged, day after day, with arguments in favor of the deal,

while those who opposed it largely kept silent out of compassion for the

Schalits? You can’t win a battle of ideas by abandoning the field.

And

while private individuals have the right to eschew the fray, MKs do not, because

they have a fiduciary duty to the public: They are elected to serve the people,

and they owe those they serve their best judgment. By placing the good of one

family over what they themselves deemed to be the national interest, Livni and

Hanegbi betrayed the people who elected them.

This dereliction of duty

was compounded by the fact that they were uniquely well-poised to influence the

public debate, since their positions gave them access to information the general

public lacked. Hanegbi chaired the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for

four and a half years of Schalit’s captivity; Livni was foreign minister during

the first three years and leader of the opposition thereafter. All three

positions grant their occupants access to information that isn’t in the public

domain.

No official statistics, for instance, have ever been published on

what percentage of freed terrorists returned to terror; the estimates I saw in

the press during the years of Schalit’s captivity ranged from 13 to 80 percent –

a variance so enormous the public couldn’t possibly assess the magnitude of the

danger the deal posed. By virtue of their positions, Hanegbi and Livni could

have demanded that the security services provide real data and then publicized

it, thereby facilitating such an assessment. Instead, they chose to keep

silent.

Six weeks ago, I wrote a column criticizing MKs who seem to think

their job begins and ends with making public statements, rather than trying to

turn their ideas into legislation. An MK who is nothing more than a pundit is

useless; punditry can be done just as well from outside the Knesset.

But

refraining entirely from public statements is no less problematic because, in a

democracy, public opinion influences governmental decisions. Hence elected

representatives have an obligation to try to shape public opinion on the burning

issues of the day. That some MKs (and again, I doubt Livni and Hanegbi were

alone) instead sat out the public debate on a deal they considered dangerous to

the country is thus deeply troubling.

Speaking against the Schalit deal

would certainly have caused the Schalits great pain. But if causing pain

is a

reason for silence, no public debate could ever be held. Did the Gazan

settlers

slated to be thrown out of their homes not feel pain when MKs lobbied

for the

disengagement? Did the victims of post-Oslo terror not feel pain when

MKs

praised Mahmoud Abbas as a “peace partner” even as Abbas lauded their

loved

ones’ murderers as heroes? Did Livni and Hanegbi ever seriously consider

not

pursuing these policies out of

consideration for one particular family’s pain?

Their silence over Schalit is yet more evidence that far too many MKs

seem not

to understand the most basic responsibilities of their office. And then

they

wonder why only one-third

of Israelis retain any trust in what ought to be

democracy’s flagship institution.

The writer is a journalist and commentator.