A deal brokered by Germany to free IDF captive Gilad Shalit is apparently “close to collapse,” according to German magazine Der Spiegel. The magazine says its sources have confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was “shocked by the scope of concessions” agreed to by his representative to the talks, Haggai Hadas, and subsequently withdrew his support for the deal.
Just before the December holiday season, Netanyahu withdrew his agreement on a deal “that had already been struck” and instead presented a new "final offer" to Hamas, the magazine reported. Negotiators from Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachtrichtendienst (BND), had previously relayed an offer from Hadas to Hamas in which Israel agreed to free 1,000 Arab terror prisoners, but wanted to transfer 120 prisoners from Fatah-controlled Judea and Samaria to Gaza or to another country.
The newest offer from Israel, however, rejects many of the Hamas demands, including the release of the more notorious and popular terrorists, and the Germans now believe that the terrorists will reject the Israeli offer. “The back and forth on the prisoner swap has dealt a blow to the BND's reputation,” the magazine adds.
Why is media mum?
In Israel, meanwhile, there has been speculation by nationalist pundits regarding what appears to be a turnabout in the mainstream media's coverage of the Shalit negotiations. The mainstream media had been promoting the deal extremely aggressively for months on end, and coverage of the subject reached a frenzied pitch in December. Suddenly the coverage seems to have gone silent, and there have even been prominent reports that argue against the deal, written by leading reporters.
Uri Elitzur, editor of the nationalist Makor Rishon, speculated that the reason for the 180-degree shift was connected to reports that the Obama Administration had asked Israel not to go forward with the deal, because it would encourage extremists throughout the Middle East. Elitzur opined that Israel's mainstream journalists, who are known to favor Obama, took their cue from him and executed a voluntary about-face. Likud nationalist Moshe Feiglin, writing in Maariv/NRG, quoted and echoed Elitzur.