Israelis Bury Soldiers, Question Exchange

As Israelis gathered to bury two dead soldiers kidnapped two years ago by Hezbollah guerrillas, critics pushed for a change in the policy that led to the lopsided prisoner exchange which brought their bodies home.

Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser's remains were returned by Hezbollah in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners and the remains of some 200 Arab fighters on Wednesday. The men's capture two years ago in a cross-border raid by Hezbollah sparked a monthlong war between Israel and the guerrillas. It's not clear if they died in captivity or during the raid in which they were seized.

Soldiers carried the casket of Regev, draped with the blue and white Israeli flag, toward the military cemetery in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. A military rabbi chanted as Regev's father leaned on another family member, who comforted him.

Thousands of other mourners trailed behind. Regev was 26 when he was taken.

Earlier in the day, mourners buried Goldwasser, 31 at the time of his capture. His wooden coffin was lowered into the ground in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya by soldiers wearing the purple caps of an elite brigade. His widow, Karnit Goldwasser, held on to her late husband's father as each wiped away tears.

Meanwhile, four tractor-trailers carrying the remains of nearly 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters headed to Lebanon's capital.

Villagers showered the coffins with rice and rose petals on the road leading out of the Lebanese coastal town of Naqoura, where Wednesday's swap took place.

The coffins were wrapped in Lebanese and Hezbollah flags and covered with wreaths. A banner on one of the trucks reads, "The Martyrs of Victory."

Top Lebanese government officials and the leader of Hezbollah greeted the five freed prisoners Wednesday with a lavish celebration, praising them as heroes.

Critics of Israel's lopsided exchange said that such deals only encourage more hostage-taking - a fear underscored by Gaza militants who said the swap proves that kidnapping is the only language Israel understands.

The deal, in which the Lebanese bodies and five prisoners - including one notorious Lebanese killer - were traded for the dead Israeli soldiers, closed a painful chapter from Israel's 2006 war in Lebanon.

But it also raised questions about whether Israel should reconsider its policy of bringing back every soldier from the battlefield at just about any cost.

Israel has been carrying out unequal prisoner swaps for decades, including handing over 4,600 Palestinian and Lebanese captives in 1983 in exchange for six captured Israeli soldiers. In the past it's even traded live prisoners for bodies, as it did Wednesday.

The rationale for such trades was a wartime ethic seen as essential in Israel's early days to instilling loyalty and commitment from its troops.

In today's world of asymmetric warfare - with militant groups increasingly focused on kidnapping as a way to pressure Israel and with the fight against terrorism now a worldwide challenge - the lopsided swaps could have graver consequences than in the past.

CBS News correspondent Robert Berger reports that one of the voices against the swap was that of former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens, who said the deal "will provide encouragement and incentive to Hamas and to Hezbollah to abduct soldiers in the future and make even more extreme demands."

"That means the sum-total is negative," Arens added.

"What we've done now has made kidnapping soldiers the most profitable game in town," Israeli security expert Martin Sherman said Wednesday.

"There is absolutely no reason why Hezbollah should not invest huge resources now, along with Hamas, in the next kidnapping."

The issue is of immediate concern because the government is deeply involved in indirect negotiations to free its other captive soldier, Gilad Schalit, held by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Unlike Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the two soldiers whose bodies were returned Wednesday, Schalit is believed to be alive.

Following this week's Cabinet vote that cleared the way for the Hezbollah deal, Construction Minister Zeev Boim, one of only three ministers to vote against it, said he was afraid the swap would make it harder for Israel to win the release of Schalit.

"No one should be surprised if Hamas will now raise the price for freeing him," he said.

Hamas made it clear Wednesday that it intended to do just that.

"As there was an honorable exchange today, we are determined to have an honorable exchange for our own prisoners" held in Israeli jails, Gaza's Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said. "Let them answer our demands." Israel holds about 10,000 Palestinians in prison.

Haniyeh's spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri went further, saying the swap "shows that the only successful way to free the prisoners is by kidnapping soldiers."

Explaining his opposition, Boim, the construction minister, said Wednesday: "We needed, in my opinion, to take this opportunity to change the rules we were dragged into many years ago, which have led to many lopsided deals."

But the Israeli military said the deal drove home the Jewish state's deep commitment to its soldiers.

"This painful process exemplifies Israel's moral commitment to secure the return of all of their soldiers sent out on operational missions," said a statement Wednesday from the Israeli Defense Forces. "It demonstrates a compelling moral strength which stems from Judaism, Israeli societal values and from the spirit of the IDF."

Wednesday's exchange involved freeing a Lebanese militant convicted of what many consider to be among the most gruesome crimes inflicted on Israelis in their history.

Samir Kantar was sentenced to three life terms for killing an Israeli man in front of his 4-year-old daughter, then killing the little girl by smashing her skull with his rifle butt.

That Israel paid such a high price for dead bodies could provide an incentive for militants to kill future hostages, said Yuval Steinitz, a lawmaker from the opposition Likud Party.

"This is a very dangerous precedent," he said. "We are telling them that they don't have to do their utmost to keep captive soldiers alive, to save them if captured."

Nor was the high price of the swap lost on ordinary Palestinians.

"Nobody would have expected that Israel would give up the likes of Samir Kantar. Hezbollah has shown that they are mighty people, and Israel is afraid of them and had to meet their demands," said Samar Mohammed, a 23-year-old architect in the West Bank city of Ramallah.