(IsraelNN.com) Media pressure on the Israeli government and public reached a crescendo at the end of the week as the Left demanded that the government accept Hizbullah and Hamas demands for release of terrorist murderers in exchange for three IDF soldiers abducted in 2006.

The government is due to discuss the proposed deals with Hizbullah and Hamas next week. Regarding the deal with Hizbullah, a major point of contention is Hizbullah's demand for the release of Samir Kuntar, who murdered a Jewish man and then smashed the skull of his four-year-old daughter, killing her as well, in 1979.

A discussion of the deal negotiated with Hizbullah for Regev and Goldwasser is on the government's schedule for Sunday, although an actual vote has not been scheduled yet. Ofer Dekel, the government's negotiator, favors Kuntar's release. Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, opposes it.

A large majority of ministers is reportedly in favor of the deal, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni have not yet made up their minds.

The 'Mothers'
All of the major news outlets played up a story Friday morning about a group of "mothers of soldiers" that announced it would go on a protest march towards the Erez junction, demanding the release of captive IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit, being held by Hamas, as well as the two soldiers captured by Hizbullah, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Security sources have been quoted as estimating that Regev and Goldwasser are no longer alive, but they are not completely certain that this is so.

The "group of mothers," which intends to hold protests on a weekly basis, is reminiscent of pre
A large majority of ministers is reportedly in favor of the deal, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni have not yet made up their minds.
vious protests by "mothers," the most famous of which was the "Four Mothers" movement in the late 1990s. The protests by the "Four Mothers" group was played up by Israeli media and led to the relinquishing of the Israeli security buffer zone in southern Lebanon in 2000.

Diskin eases stance
The heads of Israel's different security organizations will testify before the cabinet Sunday. The head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), Yuval Diskin, who in the past opposed the release of any terrorists "with bloodstained hands" – i.e., who participated in terror attacks that hurt or killed people – is now said to have changed his mind. Diskin reportedly agrees to the release of some "bloodstained" terrorists from Judea and Samaria on the condition that they not be allowed to return to Judea and Samaria, but that they be released in Gaza or abroad.

Maariv reported Friday that a source close to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert blamed the Minister of Defense and other security officials for allowing the debate over the deal to become public. It quotes Olmert as saying that most security officials opposed the deal at first but were eventually swayed to relent by media pressure. 

'Are the Jews stupid?'
Maariv also quotes a person who is said to have great influence on Olmert as saying: "It is madness to release [Kuntar]. A country that releases a despicable murderer like that, a man who smashed the skull of a small girl, who murdered her fother in front of her eyes, a person like that should be executed, or left to rot in jail his whole life. No country in the world would release a man like that, and in exchange for the bodies of dead soldiers… What message are we sending the terrorists?... What does it tell them, that the Jews are stupid? That even if you kill them and murder their babies, in the end you will go free?"

Former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said in an interview Friday that Kuntar should be set free. "Kuntar has been in jail for 30 years," he said. "If he sits five more years, we will not receive any further benefit from him. I would prefer, of course, that he end his life in a closed cell, but if the result is that the Regev and Goldwasser families remain in limbo, we must release." Regarding Shalit, too, Halutz said that he favored paying a high price. "It is not enough to look at the external price. We must also look at the internal price – what the captivity does to the Jewish mother."

Regarding the Shalit deal, an Arab newspaper reported that Israel gave Egypt a list of names of 450 terrorist prisoners it is willing to release in return for the soldier. Hamas reportedly demanded the release of Fatah terror leader Marwan Barghouti, but Israel refused to let him go.