Meir Indor, spokesman for Almagor Terror Victims Association, said today that the deal currently being discussed to obtain the release of Elchanan Tenenbaum would endanger Israeli interests and citizens. “How will Tenenbaum’s family be able to look into the eyes of the loved ones of those who will be killed by the terrorists who will be released?” he asked Arutz-7’s Yosef Meiri today. “A country has to know how to pay a price for the war against terrorism, just as I myself was sent to fight a battle against four terrorists; I was wounded, but could just as easily have been killed. We are fighting a war, and soldiers are sent to fight, and the risk is known.”

Asked if there is no price he would be willing to pay for the return of captives, Indor said, “We must do just as we did in 1950, during the Jibli affair. We abducted Arabs specifically for the purpose of using them to obtain the release of our citizens. We did not release terrorists who would further endanger us.” He mentioned the precedent almost 1,000 years ago of the saintly rabbi, the Maharam of Rotenburg, who was kidnapped and instructed his Jewish community not to pay the ransom that was demanded for his release. “He in fact died in prison, and even said that they should not pay to have his body released, because he knew that this would lead to more such kidnappings—and this was when the price was only money, not a threat to Jewish life!”

Indor mentioned the 1974 hostage situation in which 22 Jewish children were killed in Maalot: “Prime Minister Golda Meir said at the time that there would be no release of terrorists—and in fact the army launched a commando operation that ended up costing us 22 children … Since then, there has been a deterioration in our stance, which began with the famous Jibril deal in 1985, in which we released over 1,150 terrorists in exchange for three captive soldiers. The released terrorists included Marwan Barghouti, who is now charged with the murder of at least 13 Israelis, and two more who murdered a Jewish woman in eastern Jerusalem, and many others who were involved in various ways in terrorism.”

“In addition,” Indor said, “deals of this nature decrease our deterrence, by encouraging others to perpetrate terrorism in the knowledge that the chances are good that they will be released … After the Jibril exchange, I and several others started a petition to the government saying that if we were taken captive, we do not want to be released in exchange for terrorists, and that the government should not listen to whatever pleas to the contrary we might later make from captivity.”

JERUSALEM – A bus destroyed in one of the deadliest Palestinian suicide bombings will be displayed at a New York fair alongside booths promoting Jewish culture and tourism to Israel.

Relatives of the bombing’s victims are outraged, and Israeli government officials have quietly questioned the wisdom of the plans by ZAKA Rescue and Recovery, an Israeli disaster response group.

The idea is bring home the horror of the terror attacks that have plagued Israel, as well as to raise funds for ZAKA, a group of mostly ultra-Orthodox Jewish volunteers who assist ambulance crews and identify and collect body parts for burial.

In three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, 413 people have been killed in 102 Palestinian suicide bombings, many of them targeting city buses.

The wreckage of the bus that was blown up in Jerusalem on June 18, 2002, killing 19 people, will be displayed in Manhattan at Jewish Expo 2003, scheduled for Dec. 20-22 – the start of the Hanukkah holiday.

“We want people to know what’s really going on here,” said ZAKA spokesman Zelig Feiner, noting that both Israel and New York have been targets of terrorism. He said the project also is designed to raise money for the organization.

Feiner said ZAKA has received Israeli complaints that the display will offset efforts at the fair to boost tourism, which has been hurt by the violence. Survivors of terror attacks and families of victims also say they’re shocked by the planned display.

A spokesman for Israel’s Terror Victims Association, Meir Indor, said ZAKA’s display cheapens the deaths and survivors’ trauma, especially because it is being done partly to raise money. “They’re marketing the blood of the people,” Indor said.

Eli Avi-Zedek, whose 15-year-old daughter, Shani, was killed in the attack, was shocked to learn of the display. “I saw the bus – its remains – for the first time this week in the newspaper,” he said. “This is terrible. It’s terrible to (see it and) think that people were inside.”

Feiner said Thursday the wreckage was chosen because it was in relatively good shape and therefore less likely to disturb viewers. The red and white city bus’s windows and roof were blown out and some of its metal structure was twisted, but the chassis and most of the body are somewhat intact.

“The bus doesn’t look so bad,” he said. “It’s in quite good condition and people have seen worse in photos. There are no body parts or blood on it. It’s just a piece of broken metal.”

The attack, one of the worst suicide bombings in recent years, helped trigger Israel’s decision to reoccupy most major West Bank towns, putting more than a half-million Palestinians under frequent curfew. The fair will have booths about real estate, food, Jewish art and other businesses, said Barbara Ackerman, manager of the show.

Ackerman, who is also a vice president of IMC Events and Exhibitions, which has put on the expo every few years since the mid-1980s, said she wasn’t involved in discussions about the bus, but added: “We wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt Israel or its people.”

Israel’s tourism ministry is sending representatives to the fair. A spokesman said the ministry had nothing to do with the bus display and refused further comment.

The fair is sponsored in part by Israel’s government. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jonathan Peled, said government officials were asked by ZAKA for their views on the bus display last week. “We thought that it might not be such a good idea at the moment,” Peled said. “In such a fair, that’s supposed to encourage people to visit Israel, it might have a contrary effect.”

Despite such views, ZAKA is forging ahead. The group received the gutted bus from Israel’s Egged bus company, which normally strips blown-up buses for parts or simply crushes them for disposal.

An Egged spokeswoman said it gave the bus to the group without much discussion. “We were just responding to the ZAKA request, and we don’t have any opinion about it,” Karny Barak said.

An Israeli group plans to display the gutted wreckage of a bus destroyed in one of the deadliest suicide bombings in Israel at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan in December, at the start of the Hanukkah holiday. A spokesman for Israel’s Terror Victims Association, Meir Indor, said the display cheapens the deaths and survivors’ trauma. The sponsoring group, ZAKA Rescue and Recovery, an Israeli disaster response group, said it wanted to bring home the horror of the Palestinian attacks, and to raise funds. The bus was blown up in Jerusalem on June 18, 2002, killing 19 people. ZAKA wants to display the wreckage at Jewish Expo 2003, which is scheduled for Dec. 20 to 22. The Web site of Jewish Expo does not yet list the bus display, but exhibitor information is scheduled to appear on the Web site on Oct. 15.