Israel's Prisoner Exchange Makes No Sense at All

Israel's Knesset recently voted in favor of a prisoner exchange. However, the specifics of the exchange are where the debates rage. Israel, in it's desperation to retrieve the bodies of two kidnapped IDF soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, may have unleashed a monster that is sure to terrorize that nation in the near future. Israel's Knesset voted in favor of trading Hizbullah terrorists, including a notorious man that murdered a four year old Israeli girl by crushing her head. Samir Kuntar, the terrorists responsible for the deaths of four Israelis.

The Arab press will only report that there were three murders and are unwilling to mention the four year old girl. Kuntar has returned to Lebanon where he is being treated as a hero and has even still, vowed to fight Israel. Samir was not the only terrorist released by the Israeli's in this exchange. While Israel only received the remains of two dead IDF soldiers, Hizbullah received Samir Kuntar, four other living unidentified terrorist, as well as over two hundred bodies of even more terrorists.

I am at a loss and cannot for the life of me find any logical reason for such a trade. If I were a soldier that had died I would be aghast if my country traded living terrorists, that I gave my life fighting against, in exchange for my lifeless body. It would make me feel as though my sacrifice was meaningless because you have released an enemy that will kill the innocent people that I gave my life protecting.

I came across an article in the Jerusalem Post entitled "Analysis: Only Israelis can fathom," written by Herb Keinon where he tries to explain away the foolishness of this trade by equating the Jewish experience in the Holocaust as a reason for their difference in perceptions. I am afraid that I have to disagree with the reasoning behind it no matter what Jews had to endure. This exchange defies logic and it does not add anything to the safety and security of the Israeli people. If anything, this will embolden the terrorist to commit further kidnappings in order to free more and more of their comrades in arms.

As long as Israel had these men in prison they had taken some of their enemies off of the battlefield and now in one fell swoop they have increased their enemy's numbers again. Israel seems to have a bad habit of trying to appease her enemies and does not seem to be learning the lesson that there is no appeasing these terrorists. There is only one way to deal with enemies that hate you simply because you exist and that is to beat them into submission. It is sad and I certainly hate to say it but in this case Israel has bent over backwards to try and satisfy the complaints against them by the Palestinians, Syrians, and other Muslim and Arab Nations, as well as terrorists organizations.

However, it seems that the only way for Israel to appease these terrorists is for her to gather her people together and march off into the sea. Israel, when will you wake up and see that you cannot bargain nor negotiate with those that hate you for no logical reason. Your enemies blame you for your actions when you are only defending yourself from them. It is time to wake up and see that these enemies are not willing to deal with you unless it is deemed by them to lead to your demise.

No, according to Herb's analysis there is no other Nation on this planet that will understand such an exchange. Unfortunately, I fear that more innocent Israelis will die because you released a monster back into the world.

Links

The Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215330996531&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull