It is good to see that at least some Jews are abandoning political correctness, as it is very hard to argue publicly against exchanging Shalit. The opponents of the exchange declared that they do not want Shalit back badly enough to exchange him for a thousand terrorists who will murder more Jews.

Prisoner exchanges used to be conducted secretly, and censors prevented Israeli newspapers from reporting on them. As exchanges became a matter of public debate, they also became more difficult for the government to push through.

His rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, Abbas is pressing Israel not to release Barghouti, who would challenge him successfully in the next elections if he were free. Abbas is also pressing Israel not to make the prisoner exchange, which would boost Hamas’ popularity just before the Palestinian elections.

Netanyahu is media-savvy. He knows that the day after he gives in to the media’s demands to exchange Shalit at any cost, that same media will  lambaste him for making such a disproportional exchange, just as they pounded Rabin after the far less disproportional Jibril exchange.

Netanyahu wouldn’t be alone in conducting a disproportional exchange. Besides Rabin’s Jibril deal, there was another one conducted by Sharon, who exchanged a similar number of terrorists for a friend of his and Jewish drug dealer named Tannenbaum. (In fairness, it should be noted that Tannenbaum was privy to a major military secret). Menachem Begin exchanged 82 murderers (not just security prisoners) for a single soldier, and Levi Eshkol exchanged extremely high-value terrorists for the El Al passengers.

Previously, the government had “only” agreed to trade a thousand terrorists for Shalit, but this means that they would have released for him a person actively involved in current attempts to murder Jews.

What moral perversity does it take to overlook the life-risking efforts of the tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers and policemen who arrested those thousand Arab terrorists—and exchange the Arabs for a single corporal from a well-connected leftist family?

And why single out Hamas terrorists? Shalit was kidnapped by common Palestinian criminals of the Dughmush family, with help from the PRC.

And why should the terrorists who actually murdered or tried to murder Jews be allowed better conditions than kidnappers? Madness, Jewish madness.

Of course, the protesters went home shortly, and the trucks went through.

In December, Hamas’s armed wing tried to kidnap an Israeli soldier near Gaza. The saboteur was arrested.

Hamas sees that Shalit alone is insufficient as a tool with which to bargain for the release major terrorist prisoners, and seeks more pawns. Hamas’s assumption is wrong: faced with more abductions, Israel will harden her prisoner-exchange policy to avoid an escalation in kidnappings. Kidnapping attempts delay negotiations on Shalit: the government sees little sense in bringing Shalit back at an astronomical cost if more abductions are to follow.

Now the German mediator will help Hamas press Israel. He is personally close to Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists, and his ability to convince Israel to agree to Hamas’ demands will further improve his reputation with terrorists, and ultimately his position in German security establishment.

Iran objects to deportation because it wants Barghouti in the West Bank to replace moderate Abbas. But failure to make the exchange would harm the electoral prospects of Gaza’s Hamas leaders, who therefore traveled to Syria to convince Mashaal, the Iranian puppet, to accept deportation.

Israel, as always, allowed Hamas leaders safe passage from Gaza to Egypt instead of killing them at the border and thus solving the Shalit problem.

Polls indicate that about forty to sixty percent of Jewish Israelis are in favor of exchanging Shalit. What could be better testimony to the inefficiency of democracy in an era when the media manufacture public opinion?

The Israeli government, proud as an ostrich with its head in sand, refuses to talk with Hamas. Instead, it involved a German go-between.

Israeli negotiations with Hamas center on less than a dozen high-value prisoners. Hundreds of other murderers and would-be murderers will be released with no questions asked. The government ignores the obvious fact that Israeli Arabs are enemies just like their West Bank brethren, and refuses to release terrorists who happen to be Israeli residents. The proper action would be to release them along with 1.5 million of their compatriots who currently reside in Israel.

A little chance remain that Netanyahu and the heads of Shabak and Mossad would prevail over Barak and Ashkenazi in rejecting the exchange.

Hamas won’t give up on its demands, so Israel’s rulers will give in.

The release is likely to happpen. The government has been reduced to imploring the Hamas terrorists to accept being expelled from the West Bank upon their release.

Fatah started damage-control measures with another crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank. The release kills Abbas and the Palestinian moderates: the Israeli government has proven yet again that it only understands the language of force.

Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers risked their lives to arrest another nine terrorists in overnight raids. These, too, will be eventually released.

At the present exchange rate, the Palestinians need to kidnap only ten more Israelis to get all their jailed terrorists released.

It must ring a bell with Israelis that an arch-terrorist prefers five consecutive life terms in jail to living in Jordan. No surprise, given the resort-like conditions terrorists enjoy in Israeli prisons.

Al Hayat is not well-informed about Israel, but he has good inside knowledge of Palestinian affairs; thus the story reflects Abbas’s hopes. Barghouti’s release would spell electoral defeat for Abbas: having been locked away in jail for the past years, Barghouti is untainted by the allegations of corruption that plague other PLO leaders.

Israel will find it very hard to negotiate with the tough and popular Barghouti, as opposed to Abbas the puppet. Peres nevertheless supports Barghouti as the only Palestinian leader who might sign a durable peace treaty with Israel.

Once he is expelled, Barghouti will gain international prominence like Mashaal did, and one day Peres will bring him back to win Palestinian elections, like he brought Arafat from Tunis.

The petitioners argued correctly that the list had already been provided to Hamas, Fatah, Egypt, and the Nazis Germany, and thus cannot pose a security threat. The government, of course, fears Jewish reaction to the list. The government’s relations with our enemies are cozy: Hamas leaders openly travel from Gaza to Egypt, where they live in five-star hotels.

Netanyahu’s government agreed to release more terrorists than Olmert’s—about 450 of them, plus 500-something of trash jailed for minor security offenses.

American Jews do not understand that Shalit comes from a well-connected leftist family, while Pollard, to the government, is just another foreign Jew, aliyah cannon fodder.

It would be so easy to bring Pollard back: just arrest a few American spies in Israel—scores of them work here openly—and exchange them for Pollard.

According to Barak, Israeli acceptance of exchanges must not be rescinded retroactively, and must apply to the corporal already in captivity.
According to Netanyahu, he is bound by Olmert’s promises, but this will be the last exchange.

Are the voters not sick of their lies?

By releasing these prisoners, Israel is agreeing to treat her Arab population as enemy combatants, entitled to be released in prisoner exchanges.

So far, the exchange is stalled over big-ticket names. It is perfectly okay to murder common Israelis—the government has long agreed to release the perpetrators of such crimes—but emotions flare over Abed Sayeed, who organized the Park Hotel massacre that left rich and famous Israelis dead.

Tens of thousands of good Jews risked their lives to arrest the 1,100 Palestinian terrorists who are soon to be released for a worthless corporal from a well-connected leftist family.

As usual, IDF let the enemy leaders go unscathed.

IDF would undoubtedly consider the killing of an enemy leader with the loss of only a single Israel soldier a successful operation. Why then, did it refrain from firing at Zahar, even at the cost of losing Shalit?

The upcoming exchange is so unseemly that Netanyahu wants no responsibility for it, promising instead to submit it to the Knesset for debate.

Vengeful justice done to murderers, rather than petty kickbacks, would be proper “psychological assistance.”

Jewish hysteria over releasing a corporal from a well-connected leftist family is disgusting. Hamas, Fatah, and other honest fighters stand tall while thousands of their members languish in Israeli jails for decades.