Israelis Bury Soldier, Question Exchange

Tag : black & green
As Israelis gathered to bury two dead soldiers kidnapped two yearsago by Hezbollah guerrillas, critics pushed for a change in thepolicy that led to the lopsided prisoner exchange which broughttheir bodies home.

Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser's remains were returned byHezbollah in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners and the remainsof some 200 Arab fighters on Wednesday. The men's capture two yearsago in a cross-border raid by Hezbollah sparked a monthlong warbetween Israel and the guerrillas. It's not clear if they died incaptivity or during the raid in which they were seized.

Soldiers carried the casket of Regev, draped with the blue andwhite Israeli flag, toward the military cemetery in the northernIsraeli city of Haifa. A military rabbi chanted as Regev's fatherleaned on another family member, who comforted him.

Thousands of other mourners trailed behind. Regev was 26 when hewas taken.

Earlier in the day, mourners buried Goldwasser, 31 at the time ofhis capture. His wooden coffin was lowered into the ground in thenorthern Israeli town of Nahariya by soldiers wearing the purplecaps of an elite brigade. His widow, Karnit Goldwasser, held on toher late husband's father as each wiped away tears.

Meanwhile, four tractor-trailers carrying the remains of nearly 200Lebanese and Palestinian fighters headed to Lebanon's capital.

Villagers showered the coffins with rice and rose petals on theroad leading out of the Lebanese coastal town of Naqoura, whereWednesday's swap took place.

The coffins were wrapped in Lebanese and Hezbollah flags andcovered with wreaths. A banner on one of the trucks reads, "TheMartyrs of Victory."

Top Lebanese government officials and the leader of Hezbollahgreeted the five freed prisoners Wednesday with a lavish celebration, praising them as heroes .

Critics of Israel's lopsided exchange said that such deals onlyencourage more hostage-taking - a fear underscored by Gazamilitants who said the swap proves that kidnapping is the onlylanguage Israel understands.

The deal, in which the Lebanese bodies and five prisoners -including one notorious Lebanese killer - were traded for the deadIsraeli soldiers, closed a painful chapter from Israel's 2006 warin Lebanon.

But it also raised questions about whether Israel should reconsiderits policy of bringing back every soldier from the battlefield atjust about any cost.

Israel has been carrying out unequal prisoner swaps for decades,including handing over 4,600 Palestinian and Lebanese captives in1983 in exchange for six captured Israeli soldiers. In the pastit's even traded live prisoners for bodies, as it did Wednesday.

The rationale for such trades was a wartime ethic seen as essentialin Israel's early days to instilling loyalty and commitment fromits troops.

In today's world of asymmetric warfare - with militant groupsincreasingly focused on kidnapping as a way to pressure Israel andwith the fight against terrorism now a worldwide challenge - thelopsided swaps could have graver consequences than in the past.

CBS News correspondent Robert Berger reports that one of the voices against the swap was that of formerIsraeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens, who said the deal "willprovide encouragement and incentive to Hamas and to Hezbollah toabduct soldiers in the future and make even more extreme demands."

"That means the sum-total is negative," Arens added.

"What we've done now has made kidnapping soldiers the mostprofitable game in town," Israeli security expert Martin Shermansaid Wednesday.

"There is absolutely no reason why Hezbollah should not invest hugeresources now, along with Hamas, in the next kidnapping."