Fifty eight reservist IDF officers with the ranks of colonel , lieutenant colonel and major, sent a petition Monday to the Prime Minister and Defense Minister in which they call for immediate action to free abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, who is held by Hamas.
"Gilad is withering away, and fading from memory,” the petition says. “Instead of occupying a central place in public life and military discourse, the subject has unfortunately turned into a problem that belongs to the family alone.”
"There is an unwritten contract between the citizen-soldiers in the conscripted army, professional army and reserve corps, and the state. This contract obligates the state to do all that it takes in order to return every soldier to his home.”
The letter states that “it is clear that Gilad could have been freed a long time ago and at a 'reasonable' price.”
However, a large portion of the Israeli public and much of its leadership is convinced that this last claim is not true, and that the price being set by Hamas is anything but reasonable. Hamas wants 1,000 terrorists, including perpetrators of heinous crimes, released from Israeli jails to their homes, including those who live in Judea and Samaria. Israel says that giving in to the demand would lead to many more terror deaths.
Were the IDF to mount an all-out military operation for freeing Shalit dead or alive, it would probably have to kill many thousands of Gazans in the process. Such an operation could ignite a regional war – an event Israel is not interested in.
Other options before Israel include kidnapping senior Hamas officials, as it has done to a limited extent in the past, and destroying Hamas infrastructure in Gaza. However, destroying infrastructure would necessarily involve collateral damage, and Israel would be portrayed as being excessively inhumane and cruel.
Thus, by abducting and holding Shalit, Hamas has placed Israel in a painful situation that it can only end by killing a very large number of Arabs and being portrayed as evil -- or by giving in to Hamas demands and being humiliated.