PARIS/JERUSALEM –The European Jewish Congress (EJC) strongly condemned the participation of Lebanese President Michel Suleiman in the jubilant celebrations held to welcome the return to Lebanon of Samir Kantar, a convicted triple murderer freed by Israel in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers.
In a statement, the European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor said: “We deplore the hypocritical stance of the Lebanese President, who just a couple of days ago preached unity and International cooperation at the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean in Paris. His support of Kuntar can only be viewed as condoning terrorism and more worrisome, a vote of confidence in Hezbollah’s murderous actions.”
He added: “The spirit of hopeful understanding voiced at the Union of the Mediterranean should not be flouted by stating one attitude when in the West and another when in the Middle East. It is imperative that all of the members of the Union for the Mediterranean jointly condemn acts of terror- both past and present- in all of their forms.”
The bodies of the Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were handed over to Israel on Wednesday as part of a swap deal in which the Jewish state freed four Hezbollah members captured during the 2006 war, Samir Kantar and the remains of some 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters killed over the years.
Kantar, a Lebanese Druze who was sentenced to five life terms for a 1979 triple murder that shocked Israel to the core, was the longest-serving Arab prisoner in Israel.
“Samir Kantar is a brutal murderer of children. Anybody celebrating him as a hero is trampling on basic human descency,” Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.
Israel’s Jerusalem Post newspaper has billed the festivities in Lebanon, where the released Hezbollah men were greeted by President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, as “a celebration of evil.”