As hard as it is to accept, that boy must endure till he cannot, and the leadership must not move to save him. It's the price of leaders that they suffer for things they could save if the stakes were less than the survival of the many. No one with any heart at all would leave Shalit in the custody of the enemy, but such must be till he's killed or rescued.

We can easily devolve into fits of sentimentality and do the wrong thing for good reasons, but it's still wrong to release even one terrorist to attack others again. The boy must remain a sacrifice. It's a lesson we must all accept and act upon in our own lives if need be.

Yes, it's obvious. It needs to be put in plain print so we can read it and get used to reading it and eventually take it as axiomatic. We face an enemy that doesn't share our value, and since such is so, we must not agree to unreciprocated rules of behaviour. It doesn't credit us to play fools or mock-moralists. We act the part of civilized people in the expectation of the same from our enemies; and when that is not the case, we must accept the rules as they are, leaving the boy to his fate and accepting our own as beings less than perfect, as people who must accept that we too must be hard to win for what is, if we believe it at all, the good.

Posted by: dag at May 10, 2008 12:47 AM

dag you hit it on the nail. No peace, nothing until Shalit is returned. And if they attempt to kidnap more soldiers, Israel should execute all Hamas prisoners at once. Then start a massive bombing campaign against Gaza. If Gaza resembles Dresden maybe they will then stop the rocket attacks.

Posted by: Mystical Time Traveler at May 10, 2008 1:18 AM

IF Shalit is still alive, then until and unless the Israelis determine to pour onto Gaza a rain of fire, to turn that jihadi fortress and armed camp inside out and upside down, leaving no stone unturned, from one end to the other, the only thing can be done for him is to pray: to pray that by some miracle he may retain his sanity, that HaShem will be with him in the darkness of the Pit, surrounded by inhumanly cruel enemies.

One might also, every time 'human rights' bodies weep and wail about the Poor Palestinians [tm] in the Israeli jails, acerbly point out that whereas the Red Cross can visit 'palestinian' Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, and these prisoners receive family visits and can even write political manifestoes (the 'Prisoners' Document'), NOBODY, no Red Cross rep or anyone else, has been permitted to see Shalit, or assess his condition, since he was grabbed and dragged down into hell, into 'dark places and habitations of cruelty'. Remind them of other Israeli MIAs, too, captured by Arab Muslims, and 'disappeared', with jihadi spokespeople absolutely slavering with pleasure over the pain that this caused to the soldiers' families and to Israel.

Point out to every NGO, over and over, and to the western media, the obscene, indeed, the sickening, mind-bending Islamic supremacism of Hamas and the other Arab/Muslim entities; their Nazi-like rejection of the principle of reciprocity; the barbarism of their behaviour which conforms exactly to Chesterton's definition - 'a barbarian is someone who laughs when he hurts you, but HOWLS when you hurt him'.

Hamas *demand* that *their* prisoners be treated with kid gloves; they *demand* their rights; yet hold Gilad Shalit in some cellar or cupboard, utterly incommunicado, unvisited, and almost certainly, if still alive, taunted and tortured to within an inch of his life.

Why? We have to spell it out to every western journalist, every NGO, every UN meddler, over and over in little tiny words that they can understand: dyed-in-the-wool Quranic Muslims DO NOT THINK OF INFIDELS AS HUMAN, OR AS HAVING ANY RIGHTS AT ALL TO HUMANE TREATMENT.

We have to spell it out: classical Islam breeds a supremacism as thoroughgoing and insane as that of the Nazis, and it fosters just such a psychopathic lack of empathy toward the non-Muslim, just such an attitude of murderous contempt, as Nazism taught toward the non-Aryan.

In October 2007 Hugh Fitzgerald posted, here on jihadwatch, a passage from the renowned American missionary and observer of Islam-on-the-ground, Samuel Zwemer. it bears repeating here:
QUOTE "Samuel Zwemer (d. 1952), an American scholar of Islam, and former editor of Moslem World, wrote the following in 1920 (in "Moslem World," Vol. 10, pp. 154-155):
“Its [Islam's] intolerance and persecuting spirit have been revealed within the past few years, the blood of a million martyrs testifying to the failure of Islam, its absolute failure to understand the words that open every chapter save one of their Sacred Volume: ‘God the Merciful and Compassionate’.

'A few years ago one of the leading Moslems of Baghdad wrote an article for a French journal entitled, The Final Word of Islam to Europe :
'"For us [Muslims] in the world there are only believers and unbelievers; love, charity, fraternity toward believers; contempt, disgust, hatred, and war against unbelievers." END QUOTE

(And Andrew Bostom has exposed, in riveting detail, the fact that although all non-Muslims are hated, hard-wired into Islam is a truly venomous hatred of Jews in particular. Not 'Israelis' or 'Zionists' - JEWS).

Oh, and we should remind journalists, NGOs, church leaders, politicians, that kidnapping, hostage-taking, extortion, torture and murder of prisoners-of-war, enslavement, ransom demands, the whole gamut of dirty tricks, has been the modus operandi of jihadi mobsters all the way through the 13 centuries of Islam.

This is not about 'desperation' inspiring desperate measures. Mashaal is doing exactly what thousands of Muslim warlords have done, always and everywhere, from the 8th century right up till today. He's an amoral gangster, a mobster, and deserves no respect at all from any non-Muslim.

I hope that some day soon a rain of fire will fall on his evil head.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 10, 2008 1:57 AM

Not directly on the topic but, I think, worth noting: the Jerusalem Post is using the 'J' word in headlines!

For example: in today's 'Magazine: Features' there is an interview with Benny Morris, under the title - 'JIHAD, 1948'.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1209627033137&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

And in the light of all the stories that are run here, about the way in which Muslims from wherever turn up in far-flung places following the summons to jihad, JPost has ALSO run a story about...Muslims from BOSNIA who went to war against Israel in 1948.

Seth Frantzmann, 'Strange Bedfellows', Jerusalem Post May 7 2008: - http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1209627033435&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

It's summarised thus: "Muslim Bosnians trained by the Nazis later volunteered to fight against Israel in 1948."

I recall an 'Ecumenical Accompanier' Useful Idiot report, on the World Council of Churches website, which just casually happened to mention the BOSNIAN ethnic origin of the Poor Palestinian whose sob story he was happily swallowing. The guy seemed not to experience the slightest twinge of curiosity as to why a Poor Palestinian should in fact not be of Arab origin at all ; nor to realize that Bosnian [Slav or Turkish] ancestry would make this 'palestinian' far more an alien in eretz Israel than any Ashkenazi with indisputable middle eastern haplotype and familial, cultural and historical ties.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 10, 2008 2:17 AM

Israel, in the past, has released thousands of Palestinian prisoners.. and most have immediately took up arms against Israel upon their return to Palestine..as they say on a TV game show..NO DEAL.

Posted by: pulsar182 at May 10, 2008 6:22 AM

Muslims love tough talking thugs..it is a fact.

Posted by: pulsar182 at May 10, 2008 6:28 AM

dumbledoresarmy's prescription to hamas islam's (islamic islam's ) provocation is:

"Pour onto Gaza a rain of fire, to turn that jihadi fortress and armed camp inside out and upside down, leaving no stone unturned, from one end to the other."

I concur. I am indeed haunted by the story of God's commandment to the Hebrews in the story about the Amalekites.

There is no question that under the just war concept (or any rules of morality), the Israelis are permitted to kill Palestinian women and children beyond what they currently do while legitimately trying to bring about the termination of murderous vermin rocketing and murdering Israeli civilians.

There is no question that by the rules of war and any morality Israel is allowed to blanket bomb Gaza until there is an unconditional surrender of the leaders, tribal elders and people of Gaza!

The moral ratio of Israeli reprisal rights extends geographically and exponentially to wherever the perpetrators are located. The fact that the perpetrators, fire from from civilian areas is of no consequence in that Israel has a moral duty to protect its citizens and Israel has a moral duty to stop the daily fire against its own civilians.

There is a new world order arising over the last thirty years over which the Western world allows the murder of infidels by muslims by the thousands a year. This is immoral! The new world order is not unlike the one in Ancient Athens concerning the annual feed of the Minotaur. One version of the Minotaur story provides that Athens was "compelled by the cruel plague to pay penalties for the killing of Androgeos. In this version, Minos required that seven Athenian youths and seven maidens, drawn by lots, be sent every ninth year (some accounts say every year) to be devoured by the Minotaur.

Fellow infidels, the daily feed of infidels to the Minotaur is itself immoral. The death of Gaza civilians or children although indeed unfortunate is totally the responsibility of the criminals perpetrators in Gaza. The death of any infidel worldwide is the responsibility of criminal muslims and their silent accomplices.

In Israel's case, the consequential death of Palestinian civilians in a legitimate action to stop the Islamic Minotaur should be attributed and is the responsibility of the islamic perpetrators. Moreover, the rights of engagement are extended to infra structure when an elected government wages immoral war refuses unconditional surrender.

The challenging issue for us infidels is what moral calculus and moral obligations we bring and have in fighting the islamic minotaur. How should we fight people who use tactics like the Amalekites? What is our moral right and responsibility to fight people like muslims who claim a god instructed obligation to kill women and children and who use women, children, infiltrators, and retarded people as instruments for such a war?

Perhaps the Amalekite story is telling us something about warfare with people such as muslims who are using women, children, infiltrators, and retarded people in attacks. Such people leave a difficult choice of how to fight.

The Amalekites are described as people who attacked the Israelites without apparent provocation as they were traveling during the Exodus (Ex 17:8). "When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind" (Dt 25:17-18). They later attacked Israel during the time of the Judges (Jdg 3:13) and often raided the Israelites' land after they had planted crops, leaving them with nothing (Jdg 6:2-5). Amalekites clearly described as a people attacking your women and children first as their preference made them a despicable people to deal with.

The Bible gives the Hebrews right to utterly annihilate such people. Perhaps it is because people such as Amalekites have made it clear that during conflict they will never conform to an elemental morality that civilized people have come to expect, they are to be annihilated. Where the children of muslims are brought up from birth to hate and murder the infidel, world morality is challenged how to handle these kind of people.
"You love life and we love death." "We love the prophet more than our children."

Where by ideology women and children of your enemy are weapons of war, are trained as such and act as such, then how to wage war against people such as the Amalekites, raises difficult moral questions about the propriety of killing of women and children who believe, train and act as instruments of war.

Posted by: David England at May 10, 2008 7:35 AM

Unfortunately Shalit is most likely dead, and Israel should understand their enemy. leaders like Mashaal
go live in a safe house and most cases have the luxeries that his own people only dream of having.
Israel gov't officials should keep bringing up hammas leadership living in luxury while their voters in the Gaza strip continue to live in stinking poverty.

Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at May 10, 2008 7:49 AM

I see no sense in trading one Prisoner for a light Infantry Division.

Let us know when Mr. Shalits letter arrives.

Posted by: flowerknife_us at May 10, 2008 10:27 AM

" see no sense in trading one Prisoner for a light Infantry Division.

Let us know when Mr. Shalits letter arrives.

Posted by: flowerknife_us "

Israel has a history of releasing Muslim prisoners for dead soldiers..Please note the dead soldiers were captured alive!

From the past:

"Israel released more than 400 Palestinian and other Arab detainees in 2004 in exchange for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers the Lebanese guerrilla group had captured more than three years earlier."

Posted by: pulsar182 at May 10, 2008 8:48 PM

pulsar182

Israel need do nothing until a letter arrives and verified as authentic and current to its delivery.

Hamas is on the hook, it is a big one, let them hang on it till the Postman arrives.

Let Israel publicly remind Hamas of that letter and its anticipated arrival.

Let Israel make it an issue the Alphabet Media cannot ignore. How could they possibly de-cry such a Humanitarian gesture such as that? And what? Make Jimmy look like a Fool?

This is like having a hammer in your hand and a table full of outstretched fingers. It's hammer time.

The Israelis are smart People. They learn to figure these things out.

Posted by: flowerknife_us at May 11, 2008 3:56 PM