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When Israelis see Yaron Blum on the evening news, they know it: now it is a matter of life and death. He’s a familiar face, less for his towering mustache and rimless glasses with red temples than for his work.
Yaron Blum is the coordinator for prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government negotiates the fate of soldiers with its enemies, Yaron Blum has been officially there since 2017.
The 62-year-old previously worked for the Schin Bet domestic secret service for a long time. He negotiated with the Palestinian terror group Hamas for the release of Gilad Shalit until he returned alive from captivity in the Gaza Strip in 2011. In exchange, more than 1,000 Palestinians were released from Israeli jails. The case made headlines around the world at the time.
Israel’s prisoner exchange operations have often had a slightly macabre note. Because: When Israel negotiated a trade with its deadly enemies Lebanese Hezbollah or Hamas in the Gaza Strip, it was by no means just prisoners. Israel’s principle is to bring back abducted people at all costs, no matter when, no matter how many or what remains. Islamist militias, for example, traded bones, frozen limbs, and personal items much more frequently than live Israeli hostages.
A little prisoner swap, a lot of big losers
However, the transfers, which were always handled with great aplomb, were a political success for everyone involved. Now a relatively small transfer, two Syrian pastors against an Israeli civilian, has become an issue that is gradually hitting everyone involved. The protagonists of this tragic geopolitical comedy: Russia, the Syrian regime of Assad, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinians.
In reality, it all started relatively harmless: on Friday morning of last week, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that a young Israeli had been freed from captivity in Syria, in exchange for two Syrian herders who had been captured on the Golan Heights. occupied by Israel.
The Russian government mediated that Yaron Blum was involved in the negotiations. In the end, a special plane operated by the Israeli government picked up the young woman. That could have told the story.
Dangerous hike in enemy territory at midnight
But the young woman’s case caused a stir, the Israeli public puzzled: What was it that led the mid-1920s, whose name is not publicly disclosed by court order, from her strictly religious hometown, Modi’in Illit, to hostile territory?
On the night of February 2, he took the interurban public bus to the border town of Madschdal Schams, where the religious minority of the Druze lives. From there, he probably hiked up a steep section of nearby Hermon Mountain, which is otherwise only used by goats, and eventually crossed the border, which is secured with steel fences elsewhere and almost everywhere with minefields. . The Israeli army released the results of the investigation report on Monday night. Conclusion: The young woman knew the area and had probably spied on her before.
Actually well insured, also by mountaineers: Israel’s border with Syria in the Golan Heights
Photo: JALAA MAREY / AFP
The actual border crossing around midnight: a life-threatening undertaking. And, as it was soon discovered, it was already his fourth attempt to overcome Israel’s hermetically secured external borders: get out, don’t get in, against what the security systems are actually intended.
She had tried twice before to reach Gaza, allegedly once on a raft of her own construction. Then he wanted to make his way to Jordan. It finally succeeded in Syria.
Because all of this?
The repertoire of strictly religious people does not include illegal border crossings, especially for young unmarried daughters. Her Facebook profile and other facets add to the image of a woman who dreams of a Middle East without borders and is driven by a passion for travel. Before and immediately after the founding of Israel in 1948, such trips were particularly popular with left-wing kibbutzniks. Those who returned from desert trips to enemy territory, which often lasted for days, became living legends and their adventures became pop hits. But that was half a century ago.
This year the young woman only made it to the first town, where she was arrested.
Passion for desert travel: trips to enemy territory were particularly popular with left-wing Israelis in the early years
Photo: Cavan Images / imago images
Better in Israeli jail than in Assad’s hands
Syria immediately turned to its protecting power, Russia, to negotiate an exchange with the help of Moscow. The curious: Diab Kahmuz and Nihal al-Malka, the original exchange candidates who were supposed to be returned to the Syrians, refused. They ruined the myth of Hezbollah’s dedicated resistance fighters. Diab Kahmuz, from an Alawite village near the Israeli border with Lebanon, was captured five years ago trying to smuggle explosives into the country for Hezbollah. The Druze from the Golan Heights Nihal al-Malka was arrested as an intermediary. Now they were to be brought to Damascus as free men.
But they just didn’t want to, Kahmuz definitely not, with Malka there are different statements. Apparently they prefer to stay in heated cells with hot meals in the Israeli prison. So fate fell on the two shepherds, who were at least willing to return voluntarily.
$ 1.2 million for 50,000 doses of vaccine
Later it was also learned that Moscow had paid for its mediation with a spicy additional agreement for 1.2 million dollars: for this sum, Israel is buying the Russian corona vaccine Sputnik V, enough doses for around 50,000 people. Delivery address: Damascus. This now called out to the Palestinians on the scene, whom Israel has thus far largely withheld vaccines, while being the world leader in vaccinating its own population.
Ahmad Tibi, for example wrote on Twitter: “Do we have to wait for a Jew to cross the border into the Gaza Strip, for the Palestinians to be vaccinated?” Tibi is a prominent Arab politician who is part of the Israeli Knesset. He canceled his tweet the day the young Israeli returned from Russia.
In normal times, the hostage exchange between Israel and Syria would be a brilliant success for Netanyahu. He could have maintained his image as a world politician. But the predicted victory on foreign policy points is now becoming an internal problem for him. The debate over how Israel is treating the Palestinians on vaccines will not just go away.
There is an election campaign in Israel. Hamas in the Gaza Strip will also have closely followed the agreement. He is currently holding two live Israeli civilians and the bodies of two soldiers. The vaccine agreement with Syria will haunt Netanyahu in negotiations with the Palestinian terror group, predicts the newspaper »Haaretz«.
The Israeli government probably wanted to keep the vaccine deal a secret, Moscow denied it, because it is also embarrassing for Russia: on Thursday, Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, condescendingly indicated in an interview that the vaccine he would surrender to his loyal ally in Syria. He said nothing about the fact that this would only be done against advance payment and then from Israeli sources.
“All the oligarchs, the militia chiefs, the secret service generals who can no longer travel abroad at all, will vaccinate themselves, their families, their henchmen.”
A Syrian businessman in Damascus
However, it confirmed the repeated impression of Syrians that nothing could be obtained for free from Russia. Even in the upper class of Damascus, nothing is known about the arrival of vaccination doses.
But even if the vaccine were delivered, a businessman from Syria’s capital suspected Monday night, only a very special group would benefit: “All the oligarchs, the militia chiefs, the intelligence generals who can no longer travel abroad at all, themselves, their families, vaccinate their henchmen. ”Only then will Sputnik V end up on the black market. The idea that older people and people with pre-existing diseases should get vaccinated first is only answered with a hoarse laugh.
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