An Israeli soldier who has been in prison in Gaza for 5 years without so much as a visit by the Red Cross.
Apparently a deal has been reached for his release.
The terms are not yet known, but the Israeli cabinet is voting on it tonight (Israel time).
Updates to follow:
Haaretz and other news sources are confirming the deal:
Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office said that “a brief window of opportunity has been opened that would possibly lead to Gilad Shalit’s homecoming,” adding: “The window appeared following fears that collapsing Mideast regimes and the rise of extremist forces would make Gilad Shalit’s return impossible.”
Netanyahu is holding a press conference right now, and confirming via Twitter:
Report from Al-Jazeera English is that the deal involves 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
And more details are coming out which will be hard for Israelis to hear, but the list includes killers like expert bombmaker Abdullah Barghouti (who built the bombs used in several high profile terrorist attacks killing 90 Israelis), Ibrahim Hamed (the chief of Hamas’s military operations in the West Bank,) and others with blood directly on their hands. One has to wonder how many Israelis will die in the future at the hands of the prisoner’s being released.
Israel television says released prisoners have 1200 Israeli vistims on their hands.
Israeli officials are denying that Marwan Barghouti is on the list (he’s not part of Hamas).
And, via Ynet:
All Palestinian female prisoners held in Israeli prisons are included in the
list of 450 including Amina Mona, a young woman who lured a lovestruck Israeli
teenage boy by the name of Ophir Nahum to a Palestinian city over the Internet,
only to have him killed by waiting terrorists.
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Comments
Fingers crossed..
OH and everything else I can, (cross that is) so this Israeli warrior is reunited with family, nation and friends..
If past patterns hold true, the Israelis will be freeing a bunch of convicted terrorists in exchange.
That’s always the dilemma. Undoubtedly hundreds with blood on their hands (directly or indirectly) will be released. Weighed against that is that every Israeli soldier knows that if captured he or she will not be forgotten. It’s the price of a civil society.
That’s a good point. It is important to remember what compromises we accept and why.
God, hear our prayers. Allow Gilad Shilat to return home to those who have never allowed him to be forgotten.
God Bless Gilad Shilat and his family. Notice how THIS isn’t on any MSM news, about how long he has been locked up without so much as a visit from the Red Cross….but we’re the evil ones because of Gitmo.
Somewhat related, apparently AdBusters online magazine that started this whole OWS supports Palestine’s bid for statehood. Am I too late for this to be news?
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/94/birth-nation.html
“…the deal involves 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.”
I guess we can now expect a sudden increase in abductions of Israeli citizens.
1,000 Palestinians for 1 Israeli? Somehow that just doesn’t sound right.
Think of it in terms of Nobel Prizes for genuine achievement.
Now that is one hell of a deal. An asymmetrical failure of the first order.
A ratio of one thousand to one over a 5 year period would suggest this was not a voluntary negotiation or we have an incomplete report on the outcome. There are compromises and there are acts of submission. From what is known, this “negotiation” resembles the latter.
On the one hand a ratio of 1:1000 sounds like Israel got the raw end of the deal. On the other hand, a ratio of 1 Israeli to 1000 Palestinians shows the value we Israelis put on the lives of our people.
So when the terrorists and their supporters claim that we don’t value the lives of their people we can answer in good faith that we value them exactly the same as they do: one of our people is worth at least 1000 of theirs. They are the ones who fixed the rate of exchange after all.
It’s not a brilliant deal but it was apparently the only one that was going to get Gilad out. The other option was to just leave him there to rot and probably disappear in the labyrinths of Gaza, just like Ron Arad disappeared over 20 years ago, and is now presumed dead.
I acknowledge the value of human life. I also recognize that Hamas has never negotiated in good faith. This deal is an appeasement to terrorists on behalf of terrorists. Only time will reveal the consequences of following this path.
Unfortunately, the “Palestinians” do not live in the conditions described by their supporters; and, they can afford to run the clock. This leaves Israel in a no-win scenario, with a progressive loss of leverage. Until, perhaps, the next prisoner exchange.
In any case, I don’t have a solution for this perpetual conflict, which has existed for over 1000 years. Maybe the only viable alternative is to outproduce their neighbors, naturally and technologically. It is our children, after all, who will inherit the Earth. Besides, that is the strategy followed by Muslims in Europe, Hispanics in America, etc., and it will be successful, if they manage to preserve their faith, ideology, and culture.
Now that the FBI says two Iranians were planning to assassinate Saudi and Israeli Ambassadors, things are likely to get even more tense over there. Hope they close the deal to release him soon.
If only it were possible that those marvelously inventive Israelis have planted some sort of explosive device in each of these killers, to be detonated when they’re in the midst of being congratulated by Hamas leadership. What a salutary lesson that would be! Don’t kidnap Israelis, and don’t ask us to free killers. Israel really needs to develop the will to teach the Arabs that particular lesson.
Relax, relax. They “chipped” them while they were in prison.
Mossad will have 24/7 tracking on them to see where they go. Who they visit. who they talk to.
And if they ever try to enter Israel again, special detectors will be triggered by the id chip and IDF will be alerted.
It’s all good.
(consider this my prayer)
Get him back to Israel, then bomb Gaza till it’s flat.
I’m glad that he’ll finally be going home. One Israeli soldier IS worth far more than all the islamonazis that have to be traded in exchange. But I think Towson Lawyer has the right idea.
I linked to this post here:
http://zillablog.marezilla.com/2011/10/im-getting-root-canal-hooray.html
There are so many peculiar things happening. Bibi has always said he would not negotiate with terrorists. What has happened that he would put aside his convictions and negotiate with Hamas? Found a plausible explanation at Haaretz
“…Perhaps the most ominous story coming out of today’s news, is this report by a well-placed, well-regarded Israeli journalist, Alex Fishman, who says the reason that Bibi did the Shalit deal now, is that he has something really big up his sleeve. Read on:
All Because of Iran
Bibi Netanyahu is dying to clear the table [“clean house”] and redecorate in preparation for something different, something bigger, something more important.
…If you’re looking for the things that worry Netanyahu and Barak they’re always connected to Iran. This appears to be the background for the prime minister’s decision to back down from his previous position and to pressure the senior ministerial committee not to interfere and to close the Shalit deal.
Whatever’s happening regarding the Iran chapter [of this story] isn’t clear. But it’s clear that this is the next hot subject and it’s important that Israel comes to it with the image of a moderate, pragmatic state prepared to compromise. The Europeans will applaud us. This is no less important: this will strengthen the international consensus and the image of the prime minister in the face of the next challenge.
The article details all the compromises and back pedaling Bibi agreed to in sealing this deal, all the retreats he made from previous red lines he’d drawn. Fishman says there has to be a reason for Bibi capitulating to many Hamas demands he’d been loathe to do before. The answer: something’s cooking with Iran:
From Bibi’s point of view this deal is a default setting. In his view, not completing it would’ve caused far more damage in light of the preparations for the battle with the great enemy [Iran] to come…”
So was the press conference yesterday about Iran and the plot to assassinate a Saudi, just Eric Holder’s attempt to keep his job or was it something else–sinister? An assassination of a foreign dignitary on U.S. soil is an act of war, isn’t it? But why did they wait so many weeks after the plotter was arrested last September to announce it? And the plot was known since last May? Will this news jeopardize Galid Shalit’s release?