Father demands Syria release American son

The father of an American-born Israeli soldier who disappeared 23 years ago is applying next week for a visa to visit Syrian president Bashar Assad and demand the missing soldier's release.

Yona Baumel, whose son Zachary was captured by Syrian forces in Lebanon in 1982, believes he has new evidence his son is being held in a Syrian prison.

"I have been waiting all these years, but now I have concrete evidence my son is alive and the timing is ripe for Syria to return him," Baumel told WND in an exclusive interview in Jerusalem yesterday. "I am going to ask Syria for a visa and will take my case straight to Assad."

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Baumel, a dual American-Israeli citizen, was taken along with two Israeli members of his tank crew, Yehuda Katz and Tzvi Feldman, during Israel's foray in the Lebanon War. All three were photographed in Damascus on the day of their capture, and several eyewitnesses, including a Time reporter, said they watched a parade in which the tank and crew were led through a major street in Damascus and flaunted to cheering crowds.

The ceremony was the last time the soldiers were seen publicly.

But now Yona Baumel says sources he has cultivated in Syria told him they have visited his son in the past two months at a Syrian military installation just north of the border with Iraq. And Baumel recently was given a book from a confidante of a family in Syria that has coded messages he says could have been written only by his son.

Baumel previously showed WND pages from the book, a 1999 novel titled "The Map of Love." The lettering has been stained after extensive Israeli forensics testing, but a series of marks are visible under the letters "BAZMUTACUMKCEL" – ZACK BAUMEL MTUC.

The MTUC, Yona explained, came from an old family joke that outsiders would not be in a position to know.

"It had to have been written by Zack," said Baumel. "It refers to an old joke he was told from a long time ago when his mother, whose maiden name was Miriam Turetsky or MT, was a kid. The other children would point at her head and say 'it's empty you see,' or MTUC."

As well, phrases throughout the book were underlined or circled, including "A child forsaken," "I have hope" and "help me."

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Baumel told WND the new evidence has given him renewed hope and a sense of urgency in his campaign to find his son.

"The world is coming down on Syria. Assad needs a gesture now to placate the West, particularly America," said Baumel, who feels the current political situation in the Middle East and the growing international pressure on Damascus to withdraw its nearly 20,000 troops from Lebanon should prompt the U.S. to make his son's release a priority.

Syria has been coming under daily fire from the U.S., Europe and many Arab countries demanding Damascus end its occupation of Lebanon and comply with an international investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, for which Syria largely has been blamed.

Yesterday hundreds of thousands rallied in central Beirut to demand the immediate withdrawal of Syrian troops from the country, the firing of Syrian-backed intelligence forces, and an international inquiry into Hariri's killing.

"This is the most appropriate time to bring Baumel's case straight to Assad," Stuart H. Ditchek, a childhood friend of Zachary's and director of the Committee for the Release of Zachary Baumel, told WND.

Ditchek says he has given up hope Israel will make a request for the release of Baumel a priority.

"We've learned the hard way we have to do this ourselves," he said.

Neither Israel nor Washington have engaged in intensive efforts to garner information on Baumel's fate, many say.

The U.S. Congress in 1999 passed the Zecharia Baumel bill, a resolution calling for countries to release any information they may have on Baumel's whereabouts. But critics say the bill contains a clause that defeats its effectiveness – it states inquiries must be initiated by the U.S. president, and thus far no such inquiries have been made.

"Israel has been reluctant to do much about the MIA issue," explained Ditchek. "They got into trouble with that in the past. Israel released over a thousand prisoners for two Israeli soldiers and later a good number of the freed prisoners went on to kill Israelis and become terrorists."

Yona Baumel and Ditchek previously obtained visas from Syria. They were invited with a delegation of Jewish businessmen to discuss Zachary's case with Assad, but the invitations to Baumel and Ditchek were rescinded following a suicide bombing in Israel for which Syria partly was blamed. The Jewish businessmen, who still were scheduled to meet Assad, said they would bring up the Baumel issue, but a member of the group told WND on condition of anonymity Zachary was not part of their discussions with Assad.

"Obviously getting visas in the past shows Assad was willing to negotiate regarding Zachary," said Ditchek, who provided WND with a copy of the visa issued by Syria.

Ditchek said Syria's willingness to engage in dialogue also gave him hope Baumel still is alive.

Several weeks after Baumel was captured, Syrian officials said they buried four bodies in a Jewish cemetery. Baumel was thought to have been among the dead. But a year later, the Red Cross exhumed the graves and found the bodies were that of three Arabs and one Israeli missing from another battle.

Syrian officials since have given conflicting reports to the media, including statements claiming Baumel and his three Israeli crewmen still were alive.

Prior to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, PLO leader Yasser Arafat presented Israel with half of Baumel's dog tag and claimed he had information on the missing soldier's whereabouts. Arafat later refused to release further details.

Zachary Baumel was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and attended Hebrew day schools until his family immigrated to Israel in 1970, where he graduated high school and enlisted in the Israeli army. Baumel nearly finished his military service when he was called up to serve in the Lebanon War. Just hours before the declaration of a cease-fire, Zachary was sent into battle near the Lebanese village of Sultan Yaqub and subsequently captured. That day, 21 Israelis were killed and many more were injured.

Yona Baumel told WND, "It's been a long and painful 23 years. I am going to Syria, and I am bringing back my son."

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Father of missing American: Syria has my son