Hamas Sources Confirm Report on Possible Deal on Gilad Shalit
Excerpts;
Hamas would agree to release the abducted Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, and to stop firing Qassam rockets at Israel in exchange for the release of all female Palestinian prisoners and about 30 prisoners who have been in Israeli jails for more than 20 years, sources within the organization said Thursday.
Also Thursday, father of the abducted soldier called on Israel to free Palestinian security prisoners jailed in Israel in exchange for the release of his son.
This was the first time Noam Shalit has publicly voiced support for a prisoner exchange, a demand Hamas has been making on Israel since the soldier was captured.
Commentary;
This author can’t speak as one who has suffered or is suffering through the dire fear and trauma of having a loved one, a chayal kidnapped, taken prisoner by a band of vile murderers as can Noam Shalit or Esther Wachsman. Can one presume to know or intuit the feelings that surround such an event?
Having said that, one must see and realize that our generation’s leaders of Medinat Yisrael have fallen into the pit of appeasement, of dignifying despicable, vile murderers. Negotiating prisoner exchanges with murderers are wrong, dead wrong and it begets more and more of the same. This is equally true whether it involves an alledged drug pusher or an IDF soldier. It is part of a mentality which says “we are like grasshoppers”, that we are too small and puny to defeat giants. To contrast the kidnappings of the young Yeshiva student and the young soldier with the rescue of 100 hostages at Entebbe is to see how far Medinat Israel is fallen.
Unlike the daring, fateful Entebbe rescue and recovery of Jewish hostages, this regime totally disregards the Jewish Divine connection.
And so we settle for scraps; pieces of dog-tags, dead hostages and the like in exchange for hundred’s of terrorists freed to kill more Jews.
This must stop. Our Rabbis set clear dilineation of what constitutes too high a price to pay for Pidyon Shvu’im — rescuing of prisoners.
AS former Chief of Staff General Moshe Yaalon said recently, “… he who conveys weakness in the Middle East is like a weak animal in nature: he comes under attack.” MB
For more context on this issue, David Bedein writes an insightful background piece; Freeing Killers: A Price Too High.