two years later

i'll update this post later with details about my trip to lebanon this past weekend, but for right now, i wanted to post this from the BBC news coverage of the hizbullah-israel prisoner swap. hizbullah returned the bodies of the two israeli soldiers, ehud goldwasser and eldad regev, whose capture started the july war two years ago (in addition to, as the bbc has it, "body parts" of other israeli soldiers who died in the war), and israel returned five hizbullah prisoners, including samir qantar, who has been in prison since 1979 and is kind of a big deal as far as prisoners go, in addition to the remains of 200 lebanese and palestinians.

The BBC's Crispin Thorold in Beirut says the exchange will be a moment of jubilation for Hezbollah, who are claiming the deal as a victory.

The leader of Lebanon's mainly Maronite Christian Free Patriotic Movement and former army commander-in-chief, Michel Aoun, said the swap proved Israel had been defeated.

"I believe today is the crowning glory of the [2006 Israel-Hezbollah] war... There is national unanimity to welcome the prisoners and the martyrs' bodies. Everything calls for optimism and a new revival in Lebanon," he said.

But Ehud Goldwasser's father, Shlomo Goldwasser, said he was mystified by the Lebanese celebrations.

"I cannot understand what the Lebanese are so glad about and happy about," he said.

"They sacrificed over 700 of their best warriors and all their economy, and what they get for what they did is a murderer, a bloody murderer of a three-and-a-half-year-old girl and her father - and for this they are making all this glory, for this they sacrificed so much. So I feel only pity for them."

-BBC News

goldwasser is so right. i don't know very much, but i know enough to realize that these celebrations are kind of disgusting. michel aoun disturbs me most of the time (well, most of them disturb me at this point, but he does now in particular), but this is really going above and beyond. what is this new revival he's talking about? is he crazy? revival my ass. people are dead, and your reward is a murderer. this is no revival.

and israel says they identified the bodies - does this mean that they have been alive these last two years in prison, and that they only just killed them, or is that because of some kind of dna test? because it wouldn't be surprising if they had killed them just now, to create this horrifying false victory for themselves.

it's a sad week, a sad anniversary.