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.

The MPs were detained three years ago as bargaining chips to be exchanged for Shalit. Hamas proved less hysterically eager to free its valued members than Israel was about a single corporal.

The current releases are a prelude to the Shalit exchange.

Following the lead of Sha$ mentor Ovadia Yosef, many rabbis endorsed the murderous exchange.

Netanyahu’s government is set to approve the deal, which Olmert’s leftist government had refused.

Israel refrains from freeing Shalit forcibly because his hideout is heavily booby-trapped, and he would likely be killed by the time the troops reached him. Tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers risked their lives to arrest the one thousand Palestinian terrorists who will be exchanged for Shalit, but the media have made his life more important than theirs.

Mashaal certainly understands that his announcement plays against the exchange, but is certain that Netanyahu’s government is up against the wall and will conduct the exchange no matter what.

Statistically, 560 of the 1,000 terrorists who will be freed in exchange for Shalit will return to terrorism. Together they will kill many more Jews than the single corporal saved through this shameful deal.

But German negotiators confirmed having already seen such a video, so clearly the kidnapped person is alive, and there is no reason to release the terrorists.

Netanyahu’s government is using this preliminary release to probe public opinion before initiating a massive exchange.

When Israel released hundreds of terrorists in exchange for Tannenbaum, that at least made sense insofar as he possessed ultra-sensitive information on Israel’s secret weapons. But a thousand terrorists for a leftist corporal?

Fatah had earlier arrested Harwish, but let him go as a goodwill gesture toward Hamas. He was freely living in Tulkarm, untouched by the US-trained Palestinian police.

Risking Jewish soldiers to arrest Muhammed was an exercise in futility because he will be exchanged fairly soon.

Under Netanyahu, Barak can offer Hamas slightly less than he could have in Olmert’s government—he probably cannot free the murderers. Like Olmert, Netanyahu wants to confine the released terrorists to Gaza.

Hamas needs the prisoner release to happen before the January elections in order to prove that their tactics are superior to Abbas’. For that very reason Abbas and Obama would rather break the deal.

Hamas, however, would find it very hard to explain to its voters and prisoners why it scaled back its demands for the exchange.

Realistically, Hamas cannot allow such visits for fear of disclosing Shalit’s location.

Netanyahu’s government did not worsen the terrorist prisoners’ conditions as it had promised to do.

The traitors are not alone: Rabin’s and Sharon’s governments also released scores of terrorist murderers, with the only condition being that they live happily elsewhere.

Mubarak blamed the Israeli government for its insufficient flexibility: the Jews were not sufficiently forthcoming in releasing 1,400 terrorists in exchange for Shalit.

Netanyahu is reportedly concerned with Israel’s image after the crackdown. The PM has not noticed that the foreign perception of Jews has been low for the last 2,000 years, anyway.

Acting on Barak’s authority, Israeli negotiator Amos Gilad accepted Hamas’ demand for the murderers’ release, but Olmert stopped the deal.

If the death toll had been three rather than two, the 1,700 Palestinian terrorists slated for the exchange would continue rotting in jail.

Now he is trying a similar tactic to handle the Shalit problem. Netanyahu has offered to release 1,750 Palestinian security prisoners in exchange for the Israeli corporal—up from the 1,000–1,500 for which Hamas had asked before—but none of the murderers.

Netanyahu tactic is again immoral. It took so much risk to Jewish lives to arrest even these 1,750 minor offenders that swapping them for a single corporal denigrates the soldiers who conducted the arrest raids.

In Israeli prisoner releases, the ratio is still higher, 45 to 70 percent.

$10 million is intended for the Palestinian Red Cross, which should not be there in the first place, as its purpose, according to its charter, is helping the POWs and immediate refugees. Lacking its own infrastructure in Gaza, the Red Cross cooperates with Hamas in disbursing the money.

When he was in the opposition, Netanyahu slammed Olmert for supplying cash to Gaza.

While Shalit languishes in Gaza, Hamas prisoners enjoy regular visits with their relatives, the Red Cross, and even journalists. They have phones, satellite TVs, and even receive pocket money from Israel.

Fathi al Karawi, a Hamas-affiliated Palestinian MP, spent 2½ years in an Israeli jail, one of the dozens of ranking Hamas members kidnapped as bargaining chips.

Hamas, a spirited and tough enemy organization, did not react to Israel’s kidnapping of its top members; contrast that with the hysteria the Israeli public developed over a single corporal—a leftist one at that.

By far, the simplest way to get Shalit released immediately would be to execute Hamas terrorists at a rate of one enemy per hour.

Two things are bizarre here. The local media are so anti-Israeli that the Prison Service expects an outcry over force-feeding the terrorists. And why force-feed them? If the terrorists starve to death, all normal Jews would love that.

Meanwhile, Hamas called the worsening of prison conditions “a cowardly and gangster-like measure.” Cowardly, yes: Israel is afraid to shoot them all.

The Israeli branch of the UN’s Committee Against Torture immediately lambasted the government’s decision. In the loonies’ view, it is not fitting for Israel to descend to Hamas’ level.

This is really a Kafka land. Why were the jailed terrorists allowed such benefits in the first place? Why provide any benefits to Fatah or Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade terrorists? And what kind of a legal minimum are they talking about? Yigal Amir and other Jewish criminals in Israeli jails do not have a shred of the benefits allowed to terrorist inmates, so it’s not about the Israeli legal minimum. If we are treating the terrorists as POWs, their only rights are to basic food and urgent health service—no conjugal visits, phones, or TVs.

The implementation of the government order is problematic because all benefits to jailed terrorists were instituted on the Supreme Court’s orders. And that scum dare to call themselves the Judges of Israel.

Turning Israeli jails into private resorts for terrorists is the other side of the Israeli establishment’s cozy relationship with the PLO.

The suit is without merit and was only won because Iran refused to appear in court. If training a hostile force is a criminal conduct, then the United States is guilty of training the mujaheddin, who killed hundreds of thousands of Afghans in the 1980s.

Rabin, though a hysterical and indecisive prime minister, was sensible enough to reject Hamas demand for a prisoner exchange and order a rescue operation with very low chances for success. In the botched rescue attempt, Nachshon Wachsman was shot and an IDF commando was killed.

Back in the days when even leftists were sensible, Israel had a clear doctrine on kidnappings: we only exchanged the prisoners when there was zero chance of rescuing them. Anything better than zero—we took that chance.

It is incredible that Israel provides virtually unrestricted visitation for thousands of terrorists in her jail while even the Red Cross is denied permission to visit Shalit. Realistically, Hamas cannot allow the visitation for fear of revealing Shalit’s location. Our guess is that he’s being held in Egypt, as Gaza is too small to keep the location secret for three years.

The meeting was not unique: Israel generally allows terrorist conclaves in her jails. Terrorist leaders even command their troops by phone directly from their cells.

The evil Israeli government has, however, refused them a conference room.

Like the Supreme Court yesterday, IDF resorted to collective punishment: the Hamas officials were seized to be used as bargaining chips in Shalit’s exchange. The Israeli government is bent on releasing only 1,390 terrorists, instead of the 1,400 demanded by Hamas.

The arrests are unlikely to weaken Hamas or prompt it to reduce its demands, as Israel has detained similar officials before and Hamas did not budge.

The jailed terrorists have been kept in much better conditions than Israeli criminals, and incredibly better than those endured by Yigal Amir, the Bat Ayin underground, and other Jewish terrorists.

Jailed terrorists have satellite TV in their cells, newspapers, cell phones, virtually unlimited family visits, and are allowed media interviews (a privilege refused to Amir). They study free at Israeli universities (normal students pay) and receive free high-end medical treatment. Each terrorist receives $300 a month pocket money from the Jewish state he does not recognize. Terrorist leaders continue to operate their groups over the phone straight from their cells.
This madness is supported by Israeli leftist establishment, which nurtures terrorists to prop Peres and Beilin’s idea of bringing the Jewish state under Arab jurisdiction.

Olmert masterfully inflamed Israeli public opinion with rumors of the pending exchange. As the deal seemed almost done, the public digested it and reconsidered the potential joy of getting Shalit back—and started opposing the terrorists’ release. Many voters sighed with relief when the talks failed.

No one is perfect, and no prime minister is good: Olmert was ready to release scores of “minor” murderers, including Walid Ajnes and Fadi Juabeh, who are serving twenty-six life sentences each.
Tens of thousands Israeli soldiers risked their life to arrest the 1,500 terrorists which the government has no problem releasing.

Netanyahu will have a lot of trouble with the leftist crowd of pro-Shalit (anti-terror-victims) demonstrators. His leftist opponents will use them to weaken Bibi’s government. Cui bono? Who pours millions of dollars into pro-Shalit events? Those who want Israel to lose the terrorist war, the EU and ultra-leftists.

The greatest problem is, they all will be released sooner or later. We consider them murderers, but to the Arabs they are terrorists. Any political settlement with the Palestinians would require Israel to release those “soldiers” who fought for Annapolis or the Road Map goals. Israel respects her terrorists from ETZEL and LEHI, and the Arabs respect theirs. The only alternative to their eventual release is execution.

Then, the government issued a statement citing irreconcilable disagreements with Hamas. It seems that the security establishment revolted against the exchange; it is rumored to be so outrageous that the government wants to keep the prisoners’ list secret.

Olmert the master politician probably staged the almost-successful negotiations to defuse tensions without meaning to actually conduct the deal. The idea would be to make the entire Cabinet, and possibly the nation, reject the exchange.

Forget the Christian babies allegedly killed for matzot, now the government is spilling Jewish blood.

Only self-hatred can explain the demand to release 1,400 hardcore terrorists in exchange for one corporal. The famed Jewish masochism drives these scoundrels to endanger the entire country with no respect for the sensibilities of the victims’ families or for justice. Too many traitors of Jewish origin want Israeli capitulation in the war with the Arabs, and the Shalit exchange would be an extraordinary defeat.

The Shalit exchange would become a huge victory for Hamas, and would discredit Fatah moderates. The exchange would show that Israel only gives in to Islamic terrorism and not to peaceful negotiations.

After Olmert removed Barak’s man Amos Gilad from the negotiations, Israel refused to release four major terrorists among the 1,400, which amounts to ending the negotiations, as Hamas has already promised them freedom.

The Shalits push Olmert to release more terrorists. Why don’t they go demonstrate in Gaza City and ask Hamas to accept less?

In the meantime, the PA pays Al Aqsa Martyrs’ salaries out of Israeli tax transfers.