In past decades, a scene such as the one witnessed at the Beirut Airport on Saturday night would have been taking place between Israel and the Palestinian Resistance, within the framework of deals to exchange Palestinian prisoners for Israeli occupation soldiers whom the Resistance would have successfully captured, or for the dead bodies of those it would have managed to kill. We had also witnessed a similar scene taking place between Israel and the Lebanese Resistance in the face of occupation, back in the days when the Lebanese Resistance still fulfilled such a function. But the recent scene of celebration witnessed at Beirut Airport was of a different kind, one that is indicative of how low we Arabs have stooped, and of the blatantly confessional behavior that has become a staple of the Syrian regime's practices. It was an exchange of innocent Lebanese abductees for (also innocent) female detainees held by the Syrian regime, whom all means of pressure by their relatives or by international humanitarian organizations had failed to secure the release and safe return to their homes. Indeed, the Syrian regime would not yield to demands to release them except under the pressure of the deal that was reached to exchange the male Lebanese detainees (who are members of this regime's sect) for the female Syrian ones. Not only that, but one should somehow contemplate the moral value ascribed by the Syrian regime to the Aazaz detainees, and the "sacrifice" it has offered for their release! If it proves true that the number of female detainees released from its prisons is indeed 128 as has been claimed, then a simple calculation would indicate that the release of each Lebanese detainee had "cost" 15 female prisoners released from the regime's detention centers. Is this not reminiscent of the high numbers of Palestinian prisoners that would be released by the Israelis in exchange for each one of their soldiers? Just like the Palestinian prisoners who had been detained by Israel in those bygone days, these Syrian women have not committed any crime, save that of demanding freedom in their country and an end to this masquerade of political inheritance in the happy Syrian republic. Yet such demands represent the ultimate crime in the eyes of the ruler of Damascus. It is saddening for things to have come to this. And yet... was there any other way to pressure such a regime, whose prisons are overflowing with detainees, on fabricated charges or no charges at all? Certainly, kidnapping is a reprehensible act, in this case and in every other similar case, when the issue concerns the kidnapping of innocents. This is especially true as those who were kidnapped bear no responsibility for the crimes of the Syrian regime, nor are connected to it by anything save the sole link of shared confessional affiliation. Yet it has appeared in the end that such a link alone was what drove this regime (which does not hesitate to describe itself as non-sectarian and secular) to end the ordeal of the Lebanese abductees in the town of Aazaz and agree to exchange them for female detainees from the people of its own country, those kept in its prison on unclear charges, save for the famous charge of "weakening patriotic feelings" by demanding political reform. In the atmosphere of celebration at the arrival of the nine Lebanese detainees to Beirut Airport, none of those celebrating paid any heed to the fact that there was another side to this exchange process, namely that of those female Syrian detainees whose release was the "price" paid by the regime in the exchange deal. Nor did anyone pay heed to the danger of the confessional alignment that was plain for all to see. Would it have been possible to imagine the regime in Damascus agreeing to the release of detainees from its own prisons, had the abductees they were to be exchanged for been from a different confession or sect? Despite everything being said about Qatari and Palestinian (and even Iranian) efforts to ensure the success of the recent exchange deal, the truth which this deal succeeded at proving is that the Syrian regime only cares about the fate of those who belong to its own sect, and that its meeting the demands of the kidnappers (from the Syrian opposition) who had been holding the Lebanese detainees had been due only to the latter's sectarian affiliation. As for the other truth, which could prove useful to Lebanese officials, it is that one of these officials has finally managed to identify the place of residence of Major General Ali Mamlouk in Damascus! One can only hope!
