As thousands of Israelis gathered for a pro-Shalit rally, Netanyahu reiterated his readiness to release a thousand terrorists in exchange for him. Despite this mind-boggling disregard for the soldiers who risked their lives to arrest these terrorists (and the civilians who will die from their future attacks), Netanyahu insists that there is a limit to the concessions he is willing to make. And we know the name of that limit: Marwan Barghouti.
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.
