The media and the Netanyahu government are all celebrating this great and historic "prisoner swap", all creating this impression that Netanyahu has finally shown courage and leadership, was willing to make tough decisions, and do everything possible to bring a captured soldier home.
I absolutely support bringing back our soldier, and the absolute moral requirement to do everything to bring him back. There is no question about that in anybody's mind.
The issue is only what is the strategic plan to get him back. An Entebbe commando type raid might have gotten Shalit and his rescuers all killed. And that would only have been possible had Israel known his exact location, which they probably did not.
But freeing hundreds of the world's deadliest terrorists, proven child killers, is not the solution.
History has proven in previous deals that these released terrorists get back to killing right away. There have been 180 proven cases of deaths of Israelis who were killed by terrorists who had been released under such "deals."
Who gives the Netanyahu government the right to favor Shalit's life over the life of the future victims? It is just a matter of time before the terror attacks from these terrorists occur.
God save us. What Netanyahu really needed to do was, instead of surrendering to the Hamas terrorist organizations' demands, to instead, impose a complete and total blockade of Gaza, including cutting off all electricity , water, truck deliveries of all goods, including basic food.
This would have created such a protest among Gaza residents that Hamas would have had to cave in and release Shalit or be overthrown by the people.
The price of such bold, courageous action would have created an international uproar. The world media and politicians would immediately accuse Israel of war crimes, collective punishment, they would call the area a humanitarian crisis, they would not stop showing the world pictures of Israel starving the whole population etc......
Netanyahu would not have been able to withstand such pressure even for a minute. He is a weak "leader" with no backbone or moral principles. He is guided only by what brings him high poll numbers. He has only short term tunnel vision.
The one and only way in which I would support the release of these arch-terrorists is if Israel would implant tracking and listening devices into each one of them.
I would not want to risk my life on the assumption that these proven killers suddenly are no longer violent. We have to assume that killers will remain killers until proven otherwise.
Having tracking and listening devices implanted in them is the only way Israel can guarantee that it knows what these killers are up to, and where they are at all times. This way, not only will Israel be able to listen to the killers themselves, but to listen to all the plotters these killers are talking to as well, and have real-time intelligence.
By knowing their location, Israel could end their lives with a laser guided bomb in 1 second.
But releasing these terrorists without the above 2 conditions is insane, dangerous, unforgivable, unconscionable, and will guarantee lead to the murder of new innocent victims, may the Lord have mercy on us and spare us.
This actually strengthens Hamas and rewards their barbarous act of capturing and imprisoning an Israeli soldier, and violating the Geneva Convention by refusing him access to Red Cross visits.
Whenever you surrender to terror, and pay them off, it only proves to them how worthwhile such action is, and so it directly leads to them to immediately begin planning and carrying out the next abduction.
Arabs only fear and respect power- not surrender. Naive Americans who do not have any true knowledge and experience with the Arab tribal psyche, continue to pressure Israel to deal with Arabs as if they were regular Americans. They make the same mistake in Iraq and Afghanistan, thinking they can turn Arabs into loverw of democracy.