Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Uncomfortable & Unfortunate Truth

Israel has once again demonstrated to its enemies that their strategy of taking hostages works. Worse, it works even when those hostages are killed. If Regev and Goldwasser are dead, the situation of Cpl. Shalit – and any other Israeli who might be taken alive by Hezbollah or its ilk – becomes infinitely more precarious.


Source

3 comments:

Peter Drubetskoy said...

Sure it works. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. It's not that Israel was ever above such tactics itself. We're just like our neighbors, just stronger, and so are taken aback when beaten and in need of compromises, like a bully who got used to beating all the kids up and all of a sudden one of the kids turns out to be able to hit the bully on the nose. Instead of whining about terrorist perfidy, get the hostages home and shut up. And remember that as long as you have somebody to trade, such as Kuntar, they will try to get your hostages to trade them for. That's a fact of life. Complaining about it is like complaining about rain.
And it's bullshit that deals like this will encourage more kidnappings. The motivation will be there anyway. If Rabin agreed to free all those Palestinians back then for Ron Arad, we might have had him back alive. In the end, Arad is dead and nobody knows where his body is, we are going to get 2 more bodies today and we can only pray for Gilad...

YMedad said...

Great, just great. Now you can only pray. Only pray? This is your new Zionism?

Peter Drubetskoy said...

I meant this rhetorically, of course. If it is possible to try to rescue him - well, that would be grand, of course, but looks like the days when Israel could do it are over: apparently, no intelligence as to where Gilad is, or, maybe, a certainty of failure of any military operation. That leaves Israel with the option of trying to negotiate his release. I hope with all my heart that this will be achieved and Gilad will return alive.