The Naama Issachar Affair

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from his trip to Washington and Moscow, Israelis gave him a standing ovation: Not so much for the “Deal of the Century” cooked by President Trump, of which Israelis have mixed feelings, but for bringing with him Naama Issachar.

Issachar, a dual American-Israeli citizen, has been in prison in Russia since April when she was stopped at the airport for having 9.5 grams of marijuana in her luggage. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been repeatedly pleading with his friend Vladimir Putin to release her, and finally succeeded.

At the same time, another Israeli, Nati Hadad, served his 18 months in jail in Thailand, for operating an illegal clinic. But then, much to the shock of everybody, a judge arbitrarily sentenced him to another four years. His mother Nurit was raising hell but unlike in the case of Yaffa Issachar, Naama’s mother, Netanyahu never approached the King of Thailand asking for the release of her son.

You don’t need to be an “anti-Bibi” fanatic to understand that Naama and Yaffa were lucky, because they presented Netanyahu with a dreamlike opportunity to show the Israelis, who are going to the ballots soon for the third time in a year, how great and irreplaceable he is. Instead of heading straight back home from Washington, then, he made a detour to Moscow, allegedly to brief Putin on Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” but actually for the invaluable photo-op with him bringing Naama home.

In the midst of the celebration here, I hate to spoil the party, but with all due respect, Naama Issachar is not Ida Nudel, the “guardian angel” of the refusenik movement, who had been freed from Soviet jail in 1987 after a struggle of sixteen years. Yet what worries me more is the question of the price we will pay for Naama’s release, because I don’t believe there is a free lunch when it comes to Putin. Perhaps relinquishing recently the ownership of the Alexander Courtyard in the Old City of Jerusalem after decades of dispute with the Russian Orthodox Church, is an advance payment.

“There is no greater commandment than the redemption of captives,” said the Rambam (Maimonides), and the Shulhan Arukh (Code of Jewish Law) states categorically: “Every moment that one delays in redeeming captives, where it is possible to be speedy, is like shedding blood.”

However, our sages were aware of the price Jews might be forced to pay for this Mitzva. The Mishna warns that “captives should not be redeemed for more than their value, to prevent abuses.” Indeed, in 1286, Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch, known as the MaHaRam of Rothenburg, was arrested by the German King Rudolph, imprisoned in the fortress of Ensisheim and held for ransom. A huge sum of 20,000 Marks was raised for his release, but Rabbi Meir forbade his followers to pay any ransom for him, in order not to create a precedent. He remained in prison until his death in 1293.

Unfortunately, when the Jews finally had a state of their own, they didn’t develop the kind of resilience the MaHaRam had commanded. Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was released in 2011 from the hands of Hamas in exchange for more than 1000 Palestinian prisoners, some of them with Israeli blood on their hands. And who waited for the helicopter carrying Shalit back to Israel, with dozens of television crews around him? No other than Benjamin Netanyahu, who, in his book “Terrorism: How the West can Win” (1987) had emphatically opposed such move.

To Netanyahu’s credit, it was Yitzhak Rabin who had created the dangerous precedent, when in 1985, as Defense Minister, authorized the notorious “Jibril Deal” by which 1,150 security prisoners were released in return for three soldiers who had been taken captive in the First Lebanon War.

Having said all that, I’d rather have Bibi Netanyahu pay whatever price to Putin for the release of Naama, than having him pull a trick Frank Underwood had done in the fifth season of “House of Cards,” when he declared war on a terror organization to rig the coming elections.

Welcome home, Naama.

Uri Dromi was the spokesman of the Rabin and Peres governments, 1992-96.