Reciprocity: Just a Word. What About the Promise of Justice?

To many Israelis, “reciprocity” is at best another cliched slogan, or, at worst, an excuse not to continue as part of the peace process. To us, the bereaved parents, reciprocity means the arrest and hand-over of the murderers of Israelis who have escaped to the safe havens of the Palestine Authority.

In an article published this week in HaAretz, Aryeh Bachrach, the father of Ohad, of blessed memory, who was killed by terrorists on Wadi Kelt, near Jerusalem, stated that President Ezer Weizman had “misled” him and other bereaved families. Bachrach quoted President Weizman as having promised to raise the issue of the hand-over of terrorists with President Mubarak of Egypt, and Bachrach accused Weizman of not having done so. Bachrach goes on to say that these murderers have been subsequently drafted into the ranks of the Palestine Authority security services, with the capability to carry out further attacks, as was the case with one of the murderers of teenager David Boim, who was gunned down at a bus stop in May, 1996. In September, 1997, the same man who shot David Boim also blew himself up on Jerusalem’s Ben Yehudah Street pedestrian mall, killing himself and five Israelis. If Israel had demanded the arrest and the hand-over of that killer, perhaps the tragic bloodshed could have been prevented.

Bachrach expressed the hope that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu would not give in on the demand for reciprocity to hand over murderers of Israeli citizens, as proscribed in the Oslo accords.

I too identify with Aryeh Bachrach in his wish, and I too am have received grandiose promises which were broken.

The first person who “misled” me, in the words of Mr. Bacjrach, was the President of the United States, Mr. Bill Clinton.

In March, 1996, my husband Yehudah and I met with President Clinton more than a year after the murder of my son Nachshon at his Mount Herzl graveside, following the conference on terror that took place in Sharm El Sheikh. Clinton arrived at the grave together with US ambassador to Israel, Mr. Martin Indyk, and with Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres. Indyk is now the under-secretary of state under Albright.

On the drizzling day, President Clinton placed two stones that he had brought with him from the White House on Nachshon’s grave, and assured is that the arrest and hand-over of Muhammad Deif, who masterminded our son’s kidnapping and murder, was a top “American priority”.

Clinton went on to tell my husband and myself that the very continuation of the peace process was contingent on Deif being apprehended and arrested. Peres nodded his head in agreement, and we were moved by their determination and we believed him.

Only three months later, however, my husband met with a senior security official in the Palestine Authority, who reported that Deif was indeed free in Gaza and that he could arrest him at any time and that Arafat would not allow it. I then flew to Washington, where I was brought to a meeting with Anthony Lake, then the national security advisor to President Clinton. Lake promised to look into the matter.

Mr. Lake called me a week later to my home in Jerusalem, and told me that the senior security official had denied that the conversation with my husband Yehudah had ever taken place, and that Deif was not in Gaza.

This was after the translator of the meeting was subsequently arrested and tortured by Palestine Authority security officials.

Yet we have since received further confirmation that Deif still wanders freely in Gaza, and that his subordinates are serving in high positions in the Palestine Authority security services.

Yet the same American president who made such a solemn promise to us at our son’s grave is now pressuring Israel to proceed with a preace process without asking Arafat to arrest or to hand over the murderer of our son and the killers of others who have been given welcome asylum by the Palestine Authority.

Meanwhile, our prime minister is portrayed as the one who breaks promises.

Most recently, I received a letter from a number of Senators and Congressmen who wrote to me that they had raised the issue with Secretary Albright and that she claimed not to be familiar with the case at all. I immediately contacted Under Secretary Martin Indyk, who was present when the president made his prome, and we got no satisfactory anwswer from Indyk, except to hear that the US condemns terrorism and that its interest was to apprehend known terrorists.

So I was also “misled” by the very highest of leaders, and my conclusion is that it is very easy to make promises in moments of emotional vulernability, when faced with bereaved parents at the fresh grave of their murdered son, yet fulfilling those promises remains another issue altogether.

President Clinton and then-prime minister Shimon Peres broke their promises to me, and Mr. Barach should not be surprised that President Weizman broke his promise to him. The name of the game is politics.