Why Israel should reject the 'prisoner exchange' deals
For those of you who are still in doubt as to whether Israel should accept or reject the proposed 'prisoner exchange' with Hezbullah, I urge you to read Caroline Glick's column from Friday's paper, which does a great job of making the argument against the exchange. Here's an excerpt.TO DATE, the only clear public call to reject these deals was made by former IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon. At a conference on military leadership Tuesday, Ya'alon argued against the deals explaining, "In some situations, the price to pay as part of the deal is much heavier than the price of losing the captive soldier."Read it all.
Ya'alon's statement should have been a springboard for a reasoned debate. But the local media would have none of it. Rather than enable a responsible debate, the media called on Schalit's father, Noam Schalit, to rebut Ya'alon.
Noam Schalit brutally and unfairly denounced Ya'alon as a political operative. In his words, "No politician or political operative has the right to determine the fate of an IDF POW, except a commander during battle. Ya'alon was an army commander, but today he is mainly a politician and a political operative. He and anyone else can determine a POW's fate only if it concerns their own son."
Piling on, Goldwasser's father, Shlomo Goldwasser, said, "Such words can only be spoken by a man whose son is not held captive by the enemy. He would have spoken differently had the matter been a personal concern of his."
The brutal truth is that the hostages' fathers have things precisely backwards. With all due respect, it is they that should not be listened to.
Through no fault of their own, the Regev, Goldwasser and Schalit families have become the mouthpieces of Hizbullah and Hamas. This is as natural as it is tragic.
The moment their sons were abducted, the Schalit, Regev and Goldwasser families also became prisoners. In constant agony over the fate of their sons, these families are incapable of acknowledging the cruel and devastating fact that the safety of three soldiers cannot be placed above Israel's national security. In their unmitigated suffering, they cannot come to terms with this horrible fact because for them the country, and indeed the world, is made up of their loved ones. This is the natural human condition. Each person's world is defined by the presence and absence of his loved ones. For the Goldwassers, Regevs and Schalits, Israel is a meaningless, cold, dark place when it doesn't include their sons Ehud, Eldad and Gilad.
And it is precisely for this reason that they cannot be allowed to dictate policy. It is precisely for this reason that the only ones who can responsibly weigh Israel's options for releasing them are those who are not personally affected by their plight.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:58 AM
5 Comments:
Israel should make the demand for proof that all captive are alive and well. Failing that they should be declared legally dead.
If Hamas or Hezbollah will not release one prisoner for ONE SIMILAR RANKED PRISONER they Israel should capture several thousand enemy combatants and keep them in the exact same condition until an exchange is made.
This means NO international visits for any palestinian captives, not cable, cell phones, press visits, NO Red Cross visits.
This means solitary confinement for all prisoners.
Let's try this way for a while
Now if the Israelis are dead, then the heads of Hamas and Hezbollah shall be held accountable and shall be struck asap using what ever means necessary.
I agree with what is "occupation" said. To go further, let's put the onus of deciding whether Jews are to be set free on the terrorists and if they are not set free, the captives Israel holds will never see the light of day.
And without verifiable proof of life, have the captives declared dead and announce no terrorist demand will be met. Such a policy would discourage similar attempts to abduct Israelis in the future.
Yes, the ordeal of the hostages' families touches everyone. But their plight cannot be allowed to compromise the well being of the entire country and give the terrorists the means to destroy the cohesion and morale of Israeli society. One must turns one's back on evil and soldier on silently until it can finally be avenged.
hamas and fatah (as well as all arabs and moslems) are fearful of LAND being taken away...
If Israel would formally annex lands (with a set valuation) for every attacks CLAIMED BY Fatah, Hamas (or any other official arab liberation group)) then the world would KNOW in advance what will be the penalty for hamas shooting rockets at Israel from the independent state of gaza.
I could see one acre at a time being taken and walled off, and kept as a no man's land from the west bank or gaza, with signs stating the date of the attack, who was killed or wounded and which group responsible...
picture this...
10 - 20 % of the gaza sealed off from the palestinians, only to sit idle while they become more and more over crowded...
LAND....
also why not seal off the israeli border from gaza with no crossings?
declare a state of war with hamasistan and simply IGNORE it...
when attacks occur, respond in kinda by ten fold...
allow no press from israel in....
they shoot a rocket, shoot 10 back JUST AS UNAIMED at the general direction of their population centers...
Everything "occupation" says is logical and rational. Of course, the Israeli government has been neither for decades now.
These suggestions are at the same time old and practically never been used.
Stupid Jews.
Stupid Jews is right. As in how Ehud Olmert just finangled the government into releasing hundreds of terrorists in exchange for a couple of corpses. That's some deal. And here I was thinking Jews knew how to take advantage of the Gentile. That's one stereotype anti-Semites have to let go of. Jews can be stupid.
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