If Mahmoud al-Mabhouh were sitting in an Israeli prison instead of posthumously starring in the international media, his name would be on the list of prisoners whom Hamas is demanding in exchange for Gilad Shalit. He would almost certainly be one of the "arch-terrorists" that Israel, for its own security, is insisting be barred from the Palestinian territories after their release, a condition that Hamas has refused to accept. On top of this snag, the American government is strenuously opposed to the exchange, on the grounds that a Hamas success in securing the release of hundreds of prisoners would bolster the organization's prestige and highlight the impotence of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.
Yet both these arguments are utterly specious, and merely lay bare the obtuseness and shortsightedness prevalent in both Jerusalem and Washington. The wantonly negligent handling of the plight of a young soldier languishing in captivity is characteristic of the policy, or lack thereof, regarding Israel's fate as a Jewish and democratic state.
The Mabhouh case has knocked the bottom out of the argument that Israel will be safer if the worst of the freed terrorists are exiled to Damascus as part of a deal for Shalit. The huge effort put into assassinating Mabhouh in Dubai and the diplomatic and security risks - surely calculated ones - taken by whoever did it are indications of the man's standing in the world of terrorism. Exile, it transpires, can be an ideal hothouse for breeding arch-terrorists.
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