Kerry Urges Israel To Describe Shalit Episode As ‘Positive’

“The torture, mutilation, and massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics could be similarly treated,” he suggested.

Washington, January 14 – US Secretary of State John Kerry followed up his characterization of Iran’s capture and release of American servicemen as a “positive” development by recommending to Israel that it use similar terminology in referring to the kidnapping, five-year captivity, and eventual release in a prisoner swap of Gilad Shalit.

Ten American naval personnel were taken captive in the Persian Gulf by Iranian forces earlier this week after their craft strayed into the country’s territorial waters. Kerry negotiated for their release, but in the meantime the servicemen, including one woman, were forced to apologize on camera. The secretary described his conversations with Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, saying the two had agreed to turn the incident into something positive in the two country’s relations. Shalit, then 19, was kidnapped in a cross-border raid by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, then held in captivity until Israel agreed to release more than a thousand prisoners in 2011. Hamas used the kidnapping and captivity to exert political and psychological leverage on Israel, and the latter radically changed its combat protocols to prevent a recurrence. But because Shalit was eventually freed, Kerry is now urging Israel to recharacterize the traumatic episode as positive, just as he did with the American servicemen’s captivity.

“It is a sign of the warming of our relations that this could be accomplished,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby, declining to describe what sign the capture and humiliation themselves represented. “Secretary Kerry believes Israel can reframe its experience with Gilad Shalit in a similar way, since Mr. Shalit did eventually return home. Hamas already views the case as a positive series of events, to the point that they have repeatedly tried to create the same scenario ever since. That leaves Israel as the only party with a negative view of it. It would be mutually beneficial, as with the US and Iran, for both parties to agree on the positive.”

Kirby added that other events in Israel’s history could also be reframed as positive. “The torture, mutilation, and massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics could be similarly treated,” he suggested. “After a number of years the people directly involved were all dead, so what more could you ask for?” He then endorsed a reporter’s remark that, by extension, the Holocaust should be taught in Israeli schools as a positive development, since it did eventually stop.

“This idea has the potential to revolutionize international relations,” he said.