When College of Communication freshman Leora Kaufman heard about the release of captured Israeli soldier Sgt. First Class Gilad Shalit, she said she broke down into tears.
“I called my mom right away – she’s in Israel – she was really emotionally affected by it as well,” she said.
Kaufman, who spent a gap year in Israel before attending Boston University, said that Shalit’s release was a joyous occasion that was five years in the making.
Hamas leaders released Shalit after five years in captivity on Tuesday in an agreement that swapped his freedom for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, according to reports.
Shalit was flown to an Israeli Defense Forces base after receiving a medical examination and a new uniform, according to an IDF statement. He was greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with the Minister of Defense and the IDF Chief of the General Staff before being reunited with his family.
“I know very well that the pain of the families of the victims of terrorism is too heavy to bear,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “It is difficult to see the miscreants who murdered their loved ones being released before serving out their full sentences.”
College of Arts and Sciences senior Ariel Bengio, the president of the Hillel House student board, said that the exchange sheds light on Israel’s situation with its enemies.
“This is a soldier who was serving for the Israeli army, defending the Jewish State,” Bengio said.
“This event will show how much Israel is prepared to do for those who serve it . . . and that no man is left behind, whatever the cost, even if it’s 1027 prisoners – some of them sentenced to life, some of them wanting to kill innocent Israeli citizens. These men and women are now free, but what is really important, is that a kidnapped Israeli soldier is now free and safe with his family.”
Kaufman said that she had visited the tent that Shalit’s parents had erected outside of Netanyahu’s residence as a vigil to lobby for their son’s release.
“I talked to his dad and his brother, who looks exactly like Gilad,” Kaufman said.
However, Shalit’s supporters recognize the heaviness of the deal between Israel and Hamas, Kaufman said.
“This is serious, that we would have to exchange 1,027 prisoners,” she said. “It just shows the values of our country. There’s such a sense of unity in Israel.”
International Institute for Mediation and Historical Conciliation President Hillel Levine, a professor of sociology and religion at BU, said that the negotiations between Israel and Hamas had potential for creating political change in the region, but that this potential never came to fruition.
“The exchange of Shalit for tried and condemned terrorists could have been a moment that would have led to . . . the beginning of peace talks, but that didn’t happen,” Levine said.
However, Netanyahu said in his statement that the exchange was “the best agreement we could achieve, and there was no guarantee that the conditions which enabled it to be achieved would hold in the future.”
“It’s a tragedy on all sides,” Levine said. “No nation and no group of people should be confronted with this kind of decision.”
College of Arts and Sciences freshman Shireen Akram-Boshar, a member of BU’s Students for Justice in Palestine, said she had mixed emotions about the exchange.
“I was relieved that 1,027 Palestinian prisoners and Gilad Shalit would be returning home, but at the same time, both the deal and Western media coverage of the deal make the Israeli racist ideology that one Israeli life is worth over 1,000 Palestinian lives even more clear and obvious,” Akram-Boshar said.
Representatives from BU Students for Israel, CAS sophomore Matt Goldberg and CAS junior Alex Alpert, said the exchange shows how Iraelis “give unbelievable value to one life,” and illustrates the differences between Israeli and Palestinian leadership.
“Israel was focused on restoring the life of one of its citizens, while Hamas was more concerned with retrieving as many terrorists as possible so that in the future they can continue to pursue violence,” Goldberg and Alpert said.
Both Akram-Boshar and Bengio said they do not foresee this exchange improving Israeli-Palestinian relations.
“This certainly cannot help in the conflict, but it isn’t anything that wasn’t on the table already,” Bengio said. “Hamas is a terrorist organization, whose charter includes the goal of destroying Israel. And that hasn’t changed.”
“I hope that Gilad Shalit will make an effort to see that more Palestinian prisoners, often held illegally and treated inhumanely, will be released,” Akram-Boshar said. “Besides this, I cannot foresee much of a change in Palestinian/Israeli relations because of this exchange.”