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His latest effort was against the current deal, which saw some 1,900 terrorists, including hardened killers and 274 serving life sentences, released in exchange for 33 Israelis, some of whom were no longer alive.
Indor knows something about fighting terrorism. As an IDF soldier, he was a member of the first unit of mista’arvim, Israeli combat teams that disguise themselves as Arabs to operate undercover within Palestinian populations.
Those terrorists would become the leaders of the First Intifada, which broke out less than three years later.
JNS spoke with Indor about the dangers of Israel’s approach to hostage agreements.
JNS: How many terrorists who have been released from Israeli jails return to terrorism?
Indor: We don’t have an organized tracking system. The Almagor Terror Victims Association is a voluntary body. Our dream is to establish a research division. But we occasionally receive different numbers from security agencies. There is a report that approximately 80% of released terrorists return to carry out more terror.
Returning to terror, it’s worth noting, doesn’t always mean the terrorist commits the actual terrorist act. A recidivist isn’t necessarily the one who sticks the knife in your back. A former terrorist lecturing others and inspiring them is also a recidivist.
For example, he could become a hero to his neighborhood, indoctrinating youth to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the cause. I’m thinking here of a specific example. A terrorist murdered a young couple, Revital Seri and Ron Levy, as they were hiking by the Cremisan Monastery near Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood [in October 1984].
The murderer lectures to various groups that arrive in Bethlehem or the nearby refugee camp. He lectures about what he did. I know that he also cultivates young people to volunteer for [terrorist] actions, even if he is himself careful not to return to terrorism fully. If challenged, he’ll say it’s freedom of speech.
In the end, the ones who pay for this are those who are next in line to be murdered.
Q: Would a death penalty for those responsible for murdering Israeli citizens help with this problem? It would eliminate the most dangerous terrorists.
A: A death penalty is really essential in Israel, both morally and practically.
Another option is a delayed death penalty. What this means is that the terrorist would be condemned to death and placed in prison with that death sentence hanging over him. The moment there’s a kidnapping, the sentence would be carried out. The kidnapping thus becomes the trigger to execute judgment. The condemned terrorist will be brought forward and killed. This would cause potential murderers to think twice, knowing that their action would cause one of their buddies to be killed.
However, it’s far more efficient, moral and cheaper to kill them. It costs a lot of money to keep them in prison. And their confinement leads their friends to kidnap Israelis as a way to set imprisoned terrorists free.
Q: Why did every section of Israel’s security establishment support this latest deal?
A: Our IDF and intelligence officers go to university for two years, here in Israel and in the United States, from Berkeley to Boston to New York, where they encounter a progressive-liberal stream of thought. It’s like a new religion.
Commanders also study at American military schools where they’re taught the concept of low-intensity conflict—the idea that warfighting must be kept to a minimum because you can never achieve victory, which by the way isn’t true. What about World War II?
So after this “education,” the officer comes back to the army with his new ideas about combat. Only now he returns with a rank of colonel. He’s no longer a young combat officer. He’s a “thinking man.” And he has adopted the paradigm of “low-intensity conflict.” It’s from the American system, but it’s our problem.
Most of the defense establishment is one-dimensional in that they all think in Western terms. They can be good officers at lower ranks, but as generals, they are like those in the United States, who actually fail in war.
All of this is a foreword to say that part of the DNA of their thinking is you can’t win, and this is coupled with the mantra from the Western universities and from global supporters of the terrorist cause, as well as the political left in Israel, that we need to build a Palestinian state.
There is also the issue of the left wanting to control Israel at all costs. If you’re on the right, and you say releasing terrorists is a bad idea, they say, “We’re on the Left. We believe the opposite. Our way is the way to peace.”
Q: Are the costs of these deals higher than people realize? It’s not only the numbers killed, or that much of the Oct. 7 Hamas command structure were terrorists freed in the 2011 Shalit deal, but the attack unleashed a wave of global antisemitism culminating in Israel facing genocide charges in an international court.
A: What you say is correct. However, I would like to put it in moral terms. When you surrender to evil, evil learns that terrorism pays. Evil builds on weakness to create still more evil. If you want the world to be peaceful, stop the bastards at the start. Don’t let them run riot in the neighborhood. If we respond late, or give in to demands, then Hamas, [now slain Hamas head] Yahya Sinwar, and the other released terrorists become leaders, and the evil committed in the next round rises geometrically, multiplying many times more.
Q: How do you explain that Israel repeats these deals, given the extremely high costs?
A: Media influence. The predominately leftist press is a great danger to the State of Israel. For example, the media in Israel has become obsessively anti-Bibi even though the large majority of Israelis voted for him to be prime minister in democratic elections. They’ve distanced themselves from all respect for true democracy and replaced it with all kinds of ideas learned in the Western world, similar to the radical liberal philosophies which we mentioned regarding the IDF leadership.
Some of these ideas include striving to understand the criminal, his upbringing and his society; that we should educate him and not punish him. That you should feel guilty for having power over the other, for ruling over minorities.
The media here moved to the radical liberal side. It really isn’t liberal at all. A sociologist needs to come up with another name. It’s giving into tyranny under a cover of liberalism.
As to how to fight this consciousness engineering by the media, I don’t have an answer.
Q: Is that why the public supports these deals?
A: The Israeli public does not support these deals. Most of the public does not work in the media. Most of the Israeli people are traditional. They cherish the values of true Torah Judaism. They vote for parties on the right. They are the majority.
Q: What role do the protests by the hostages’ families have in this?
A: A huge influence. The families are manipulated by the barons of the left. The question is: Where is all their campaign money coming from? I run an organization. I know the costs. We never came close to the dimensions of the current release-the-hostages/anti-government campaign. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in a year and a half. It is clear to me that the money did not come from Israel. Israeli philanthropists don’t donate that kind of money.
I received a tip from an ex-Mossad agent who says it’s Qatar.
He said it’s a ‘black operation.’ It’s illegal. It’s a method of overthrowing a government not to the liking of what is called the deep state. Supported by behind-the-scenes billionaires, anti-Israel governments look for the internal enemies of the current Israeli administration and then sends those groups money.
Qatar wouldn’t send it directly. It would go through organizations in Europe and elsewhere. They act as proxies. If I were, say, from the Fatah organization and supported by a Muslim government awash in cash, I wouldn’t suggest sending the money straight to me. I would say to them, “Israeli society is very open and it is very divided. Go and fund a campaign that will further split its society and bring down the rightist government.”
Q: There was an anti-[Prime Minister Benjamin]Netanyahu campaign, “You’re the leader. You’re guilty.” The group behind it is called Lochmei Kippur 73, or “Yom Kippur 73 Veterans.” They had ads pointing out that Netanyahu released Yahya Sinwar in the Shalit deal. But these same people demand a deal to release the hostages. Wouldn’t intellectual consistency demand they oppose another Shalit-type deal?
A: Those are a bunch of deep state experts in mass psychology. Each time, they wear a new costume. Regarding their campaign where they blame Netanyahu for the release of Sinwar, they themselves were the same people who demanded that Gilad Shalit be released at all costs, even in exchange for 1,000 imprisoned terrorists.
You have to ask who organized the demonstrations pushing for the Shalit deal that led to Sinwar’s release? They did. The same people. The same strategic advisers, including Ronen Tzur [former head of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main group now demanding a hostage deal]. He brought in Shalit’s father to a large demonstration.
Netanyahu thought, and it was his mistake, that maybe the government really was in danger of falling. So he tossed them a deal. He gave them the boy. By the way, for him [Netanyahu] it worked. At least temporarily. They stopped the demonstrations. But now, it has all returned to haunt him.
The rulers of the left in Israel aren’t interested in morality. They seek one thing alone—power to rule over the country and to turn Israel into a woke state amongst the nations of the West.
