Gilad Shalit is a huge topic in Israel, and today we mark three years since he was taken hostage by Hamas.
Now, I do realize we have thousands of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons, but there are some major differences. There is no symmetry here.
1. Gilad is held hostage. Hamas has presented Israel with a list of demands which they want met before Gilad is released. They’re not talking about mutual release of prisoners if and when we reach some sort of a peaceful agreement. They are talking about a list of demands, a ransom, if you like, and unrelated to anything that has peace or even a ceasefire in it.
2. Gilad is held with no trial or even a POW status. The Palestinians in Israeli jails are all accounted for. Those who were arrested faced some form of a systematic legal procedure. Am I pleased with the way those procedures are carried out? Not really, but at least they are there.
3. Gilad has had no contact with his family or with red cross representatives. Palestinian prisoners in Israel have routine contact with the Red Cross and other various organizations. Their families know where they are held and in which conditions. Gilad’s family doesn’t have a clue where their son is or how he’s being treated.
Yea, I wish for this war to end and for all prisoners, on both sides, to be re-united with their families. I also feel a special commitment towards Gilad, who went into military service to protect me and my family and was kidnapped into a dark hole. He is not held as a prisoner of war, as he should have been. No Geneva rules are applied to him by Hamas. He and his family deserve better than that.
With all due respect to Hamas – and I don’t have a lot of it – as long as you keep hostages, instead of prisoners of war, it will be hard to get the world to treat you as something different than terrorists.
Yes, I wish the Israeli government would negotiate directly with Hamas. Not just about Gilad, but about everything else too. Regardless of that, I think the international community should apply more pressure on Hamas to either give Gilad Shalit the basic rights he deserves as a prioner of war, or if they are unable to do that – to let him go.
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
So many of our hard-nosed leaders view such things as “collateral damage” and the lives of regular people as statistics or pieces in some game they only seem to understand. Or so they would have us believe. Any leader who does this is somehow admired among the more “realistic” among us for his “toughness” while in any other galaxy, a leader who gave up someone in his flock without working with every fiber of his being to get him back, would be called a miserable failure.
Honesty – like Mark Twain said: “A lie travels halfway around the Earth by the time The Truth gets its shoes on.”
on Jun 26th, 2009 at 2:18 am
nice comparison, show the differences bettween jews and muslims in treating POWs, i mean the muzzies kept telling all the time they are the best nations ever in treating POWs!
on Jun 26th, 2009 at 2:50 am
Actually, I think Hamas did say they were treating him well, and I truly hope that is the case. I don’t care if their reasoning is religious or not – as long as Gilad is getting decent living conditions. Of course, with no Red Cross inspections, we have to take their word on that…
Israeli POW’s in past wars, in Syria and Egypt, were tortured – but those regimes did not have any “Muslim” aspirations, I think. Funny, how in that sense, it may actually be better to be captured by religious zealots.
on Jun 26th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
During the war in December, why didn’t the Israeli Army take the release of Gilad as one of their objectives. The Israeli Army penetrated deep into Gaza. Is he still in Gaza? Could he have been smuggled into Egypt?
on Jun 28th, 2009 at 2:15 am
Jad, finding one person in the mazes of Gaza city is like trying to find the proverbial needle in the haystack. I am glad the Israeli leaders were smart enough not to set this up as an objective to the war, as it would have been a surefire way to mark the operation as a failure.
on Dec 23rd, 2009 at 5:43 am
@ASoldiersMother calling him an ass is an insult to donkeys. As for Shalit, it has nothing to do with Zionism: http://bit.ly/81Ww4B
This comment was originally posted on Twitter