Freeing Gurel
The safe return of Eliyahu Gurel, the Israeli cabdriver freed by commandos after five days in terrorist captivity, is a welcome reminder of those happier times when Israel’s military was a model of gallantry and derring-do, not a pariah. For the first time since the Entebbe operation of 1976, Israel managed to end a hostage situation not with hostages murdered by their captors or killed in crossfire but brought out alive and unharmed.
In a textbook operation, the crack General Staff Commando unit, backed up by the Border Police counter-terrorism squad, managed — by tapping his captors’ cellphone calls — to trace the missing cabbie to an abandoned factory outside Ramallah, then lured the kidnappers outside and freed him without a shot.
Leaks from the Israeli Defense Ministry this week, disseminated widely by Israel’s friends and allies in this country, were making much of the fact that Gurel was freed without any help from Palestinian security services. The idea seems to be to discredit the cease-fire. Palestinians, for their part, were complaining that they couldn’t do much to help because Israel wasn’t sharing its leads.
But the debate misses the point. As the army itself made clear, Gurel’s captors were a gang of freelancers without links to any established terrorist groups. Along with the fatal stabbing of an Israeli in Tel Aviv, the kidnapping represents a new wave of terrorism by amateurs without backup from the Palestinian leadership. That’s because the cease-fire, as shaky and mistrustful as it is, is working.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
