The Hezbollah Report and the Exchange Bargain : Arad's Fate Needs to be Resolved
Yoram Schweitzer directs the Terrorism and Low Intensity Warfare Project at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies. He is a former high ranking officer in the IDF's Hostages and MIA unit.
Ron Arad is an Israeli air force navigator whose plane was brought down over Lebanon in 1986 by mechanical failure. He fell into the hands of Mustafa Dirani, then the director of security for the Shi'ite Amal militia. Since Dirani had fallen out with Amal's head he had seized Arad as his insurance card. Dirani was then pressured intensely by Amal and the Syrians who wished to secure the Israeli asset. In an effort to retain control over Arad, Dirani attempted to place him under Iranian watch. Arad's whereabouts subsequently became unknown. His disappearance continues, justifiably, to deeply trouble Israel. After Dirani was captured by the IDF and interrogated in Israel, much of his conduct at the time of Arad's disappearance emerged, along with the factors opposite whom he'd acted to secure his own safety. However, many questions regarding Arad's disappearance on the night between the 4th and 5th of May, 1988 remained unanswered. The main unresolved point is whether the deal that Dirani put together to turn Arad over to the Iranians did indeed go through and they were lying to him when they claimed that neither they nor their proxies had taken custody of Arad; or whether the downed navigator took advantage of some opportunity when his guards left the premises to flee captivity, only to then be murdered or have some sort of accident. Those who thought that the report that Hezbollah submitted to Israel would provide an adequate response to these questions are probably afflicted with a degree of naivety that has no place in the cruel and cynical game being played with Israel here. The most common argument that Hezbollah did indeed do its best in this regard is rooted in the assumption that the organization could have extracted benefit from finding Arad or locating his whereabouts. This claim clashes, of course, with Hezbollah's and its Iranian patron's desire to conceal whatever part they might have played in Arad's disappearance. At any rate, given Israel's relationship with Hezbollah, it is completely clear that Hezbollah didn't invest the sum of its abilities in its search to unearth evidence that would conclusively resolve this riddle. Presenting pictures of Arad and sections from his diary to Israel indicates the extent of the insincerity of Hezbollah's efforts in this regard, as these effects were probably handed over either by Dirani before he was taken into Israeli custody, or by his
accomplices shortly thereafter, to be used as bargaining cards. The release of Samir Kuntar, as well as the fulfillment of Hezbollah's other demands, were most likely made contingent upon the release to Israel of the aforementioned items, as well as the renewed effort to shed light on Arad's disappearance. The pictures of Arad and his letters do not reveal any new information. Since they were made public, however, the Israeli media has been airing one feverish interpretation of their significance after another. They have, for instance, attempted to analyze Arad's health based upon the fact that his hands are hidden in the new picture. Likewise, many have purported to extract new, quality intelligence from the background of the picture, wherein a Persian rug bearing traditional Shi'ite inscriptions can be seen—of a type which, as is well known, were not particularly rare in the time and place in which Arad was initially held. The attempt to judge the degree of Hezbollah and Iran's involvement in this matter through these photographs , even as they were making them public, reveals an inexcusable degree of naivety and incompetence on the part of the media's talking heads. What is possible to extract from the report, the full contents of which are not open to the public, is the identity of those questioned by Hezbollah and, equally importantly, of those who weren't interrogated and could yet be relevant for future investigations. The nature of intelligence data and of course of a detailed intelligence report, is that it raises many questions: under what circumstances was the information delivered? Who were the sources and what was their motivation for cooperating? To what degree was the purveyor of information close to the information's source? Was the information surrendered freely or under duress and with what intent? Most importantly, how was the reliability of the information ascertained? It is clear, in any event that, given its investment in this matter, Israel would have conducted this investigation differently, in a deep and thorough fashion, so that its results, even if they didn't conclusively answer the question of Arad's disappearance, would at least open new venues of investigation into this mystery. As such, it remains Israel's duty to continue to attempt to unravel the riddle of Arad's fate. Returning Kuntar on the one hand, and Hezbollah's report on the other, constitute only steps on, and not the end of, this trail.