Following a Lebanese report that contacts are underway to bring back the remains of Israeli navigator Ron Arad, who was captured in Lebanon in 1986, his friend Ronen Meir told 103FM on Wednesday that listeners should keep the matter in perspective: "We are overwhelmed with attempts and disappointments."
Meir, a friend of Arad who graduated with him from the flight course during their time in the IDF, spoke on 103FM with Prof. Aryeh Eldad and Ron Kaufman about the report.
In light of the report from Al Jadeed, according to which the political negotiations between Lebanon and Israel are expected to include the possibility of a deal in which Arad's remains would be exchanged for Lebanese prisoners, Meir dampened expectations.
"That sounds to me somewhat absurd, if not delusional," he said. "We are saturated with previous attempts of this kind. From my familiarity with our enemies and neighbors, this tune always plays, and we are saturated with disappointments on this matter."
"Let's assume that the Lebanese do indeed have information about Ron and want to bargain with it. The best and simplest thing they could do is send a sample so we can see whether there is someone to talk to. To refute it through a journalist does not seem to me like a serious channel for anyone who wants to deal with such a complicated issue."
Meir referred to Israel's past and present efforts: "It is worth noting that only a few weeks ago, the Israeli government sent a commando force with four Yas'ur helicopters into Lebanon in an attempt to recover Ron's body, and we almost left a great many dead there. With all the pain and my personal desire to solve the mystery of my friend, we need to be careful about fantasies and fleeing into unrealistic areas."
"The ethos of not abandoning a soldier should not go back to Ron. One can look two and a half years back and see what happened to that ethos when we had living civilians and soldiers in captivity, and some of them returned in body bags. The question is what price we are prepared to pay for that ethos. It is legitimate to use judgment," he continued.
To conclude, Meir recalled the family's position over the years: "In Ron's case, his mother Batia Arad gave her testament while she was still alive and said she did not want any soldier to risk his life if it is known that Ron is no longer alive."
"Tami Arad, my friend, said immediately that same night of the commando operation that 'we said from the outset that for Ron's body, not even one soldier should be put at risk.' If there were really anything to the reports, the first thing they would do is give a sample. How many samples have we already received that we have discovered were donkey bones? It simply does not seem serious to me."
Former Mossad, Shin Bet officer says negotiations help to find Arad
Eyal Tzur Cohen, a former head of the Mossad's Tevel Division and a former senior Shin Bet official, said on 103FM on Monday that reported negotiations with Lebanon include a demand for the return of the remains of navigator Ron Arad, and that any future arrangement could significantly improve the chances of finding him.
The former official, who was responsible for prisoners and missing persons, addressed the reports that talks with Lebanon include a demand to return the remains of Arad, the navigator who was taken captive in Lebanon four decades ago. "The Ron Arad issue was one of the heaviest matters we dealt with over the years," he said. "Unimaginable efforts were made in terms of investing resources and risking Mossad assets and the security establishment, in order to try to trace what happened to him. There is a dominant hypothesis about what happened to him, but the difficulty was always reaching searches on the ground in places where we assessed there was a good chance of locating his remains."
He expressed hope that Arad could be located as part of a future arrangement. "If there is some kind of arrangement with the Lebanese Army and access becomes possible to areas populated mainly by Shiites, that raises the chance of finding him. I very much hope that happens."
Tzur Cohen later addressed contacts between Washington and Tehran over the nuclear program. "This is not a game of understandings, but of misunderstandings," he said. "The further we move forward, the more gaps in interpretation each side gives, making it harder to reach an agreement. Both sides want to set the mutual siege aside and enter a new round of reorganization. The Iranians are weakened now, without a conventional army and with mainly asymmetric capabilities, and they are seeking understandings that will allow them to recover economically and politically."
Regarding the International Atomic Energy Agency's demand for access to nuclear facilities, he said: "This is a basic and essential issue. So far, no scientific or professional damage assessment has been carried out for the enrichment facilities. I am clear that the Iranians will squeeze the Americans until they allow them to take such a step. Trump understands that there are essential issues he has to put at the top, and the Iranians understand this is the last thing they want to compromise on."
The ballistic threat: 'Between the Americans and us, there is a disagreement about this threat'
Tzur Cohen also discussed the ballistic missile threat and the gaps with the United States on the issue. "Between the Americans and us, there has been a disagreement for more than a decade about this threat," he explained.
"The Americans are concerned about missiles that reach ranges of about 700 kilometers, because most of their assets are within that range. We add another 1,000 kilometers to that, because Iran's targets in Israel are at a range of 1,700 kilometers," he added
"They understand that the chance of preventing a sovereign state from having short- and medium-range missiles is not reasonable, because that would effectively strip it of the ability to defend itself," he concluded.