Perspective

"Samir is one of us and a commander of our resistance and it is our right to retaliate for his assassination in the place, time and a way we see appropriate. We will exercise this right, God willing."
"We have no doubt or question that Israel is the one which assassinated Samir Kantar, its planes fired precise missiles on an apartment [he was in]. Samir Kantar's blood will give the Palestinian youth more determination."
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah

A file picture taken on October 22, 2008, shows Samir Kuntar posing for a picture during an interview on the outskirts of Beirut. In the background is a photograph of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (AFP PHOTO/JOSEPH BARRAK)

"We are taught that Israeli prisons are the worst in the world but in fact we know that the Israelis are more merciful than all of the Arabs."
"Some say that the Zionists are our biggest enemy, dogs and murderers. But Muslims kill more Muslims that the Zionists."
"Samir Kuntar left an Israeli prison with a beer belly and a doctorate. At the other extreme, this is how Syrians leave Assad’s prisons."
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"The prisoners in Israel enjoy conditions above and beyond those of any others in the world. It is part of a humane Israeli approach that even prisoners deserve rights."
Orit Adato, former commissioner, Israeli Prison Service, 2000 to 2003

While Hezbollah mourns as a martyr the heroic figure of assassinated Samir Kantar, a Palestinian who at age 16 and a member of the PLO, butchered an Israeli man and his four-year-old daughter, and then an Israeli policeman, sentenced by an Israeli court of justice to three life prison terms, an al-Jazeera journalist writing about the situation noted in an opinion piece the stark difference between a Syrian prisoner in a Syrian jail and the way that Samir Kantar appeared as he left an Israeli jail after 30 years' incarceration when he became part of a prisoner-trade-off between Israel and Hezbollah.

The contrast is only too obvious. The Syrian prisoner looks like a death-camp inmate on the verge of death, while Samir Kantar looks hale, hearty and prepared to resume his previous deadly enterprises. Feted as a hero by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he was honoured in Syria and in Lebanon, and of course by the Palestinian Authority. The al-Jazeera article has been seen and commented on countless times in the wake of the airstrikes that killed the man who had become a Hezbollah operative and had been assigned to prepare military action to restore the Golan Heights to Syria.

Kantar's long residency in an Israeli prison conferred a privilege upon him; namely the opportunity to study academically and obtain degrees that he had not previously had the opportunity to achieve. Palestinian prisoners are permitted in Israeli incarceration, to pursue studies through online courses from the Open University of Israel. Kantar took part in such a program, graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Social and Political Science. Some media sources cited a Masters and a Ph.D as well to his credit.

If so, it only goes to prove that higher education can do just so much and no more to guide people intelligently.

Since the early 1990s Israel has been offering university courses to prisoners. Of the approximately 5,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons at the present time, hundreds are believed to be indulging in studies leading to degrees, even those prisoners involved in politically-inspired violence. With the captivity of Israel Defence Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, and the frustrations involved in trying to have him released, Israel scaled back those privileges.

On his release, and the celebrations surrounding the event, Kantar took a senior role within the Hezbollah terrorist group. Then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had honoured Kantar as well in recognition of his having organized Syrian Druze on the Golan Heights into terror cells directed to carry out attacks in Israel.

While Kantar had paid the price that Israeli justice placed upon his act of killing three Israeli Jews, he was targeted for assassination for what he was tasked to undertake for Hezbollah; preparing militias to mount attacks meant to restore the Golan Heights which Israel had annexed after a war with Syria, back into Syrian possession.

The Golan Heights overlooking Israel, are a critical asset to Israel, and while they were part of Syria they were distinguished by enabling Syrian attacks against Israel. They will not be willingly returned to Syrian possession as long as the Arab world remains set on destroying Israel and returning the land on which it sits in reflection of ancient Hebrew heritage in the geography, to Arab possession.