The Palestinians have just shown the entire world their collective values — and the result is creepy beyond belief. Every once in a while a single incident crystallizes almost everything — all the cry-of-the-heart moral equivalence, all the special pleading, all the revisionism, all the national-liberationist cant. The crude and coerced Egyptian interview of Gilad Shalit says it all. He looked emaciated and short of breath, like the old film clips of those who had just emerged from Dachau; his Egyptian inquisitor, the repulsive Shahira Amin (lately a heartthrob of the Western media, who drew praise in the past from Secretary Clinton), preened like some sort of Lady Haw-Haw reading a script from Goebbels’s Ministry of Propaganda — with a masked Hamas thug in the background, rounding out the cast, perfectly playing the part of a cowardly killer from the SS Einsatzgruppen.
As if a chorus on cue, the released killers immediately boasted that they would murder again. Then, there was the vow to kidnap more soldiers, the anger that the 1,000-to-1 ratio of exchange was not enough, the usual anti-Semitic Hitlerian communiqués boasting of “victory” over the “apes and pigs,” and the mass deification on the West Bank of freed mass killers who looked far better than did Shalit. So all that raises a question in this supposed morally equivalent conflict: Why in the world are we giving one cent in foreign aid to Palestinian groups of any sort? The entire sordid spectacle of the Shalit interview was one of the more repulsive video moments in memory — right up there with the Palestinian street’s cheering on news of 3,000 Americans murdered on 9/11. No other supposedly aggrieved clique has such a talent in moments of its jubilation and exultation for reminding the world why so many can find it so utterly repellent.
On a final practical note: Be careful for what you wish. Now the Palestinian community will at long last have their bombers in their midst and must live with the retaliatory consequences when their heroes go back to what they habitually do.
Yes, Dr Hanson, but it is innocent Israelis who will be slaughtered by these repatriated bombers.
While it is heart-warming to have Shalit back, his freedom will likely turn out to have been bought at the price of other Israeli lives.
Hanging all the terrorists would have been a better idea.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat's what I was thinking. I'm sure this is good for Shalit and his family.
This is bad for the rest of Israel.
Why did they do this?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWatching the understandably terrified Shalit struggle through that propaganda "interview" was literally stomach churning. It is hard to imagine the level of fear he must have felt being uncertain of what was happening after being promised release after so many years. A truly disgusting spectacle...... but it pales in comparison to Hamas immediately promising to take another hostage as soon as Shalit was released.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou are so right, VDH. The difference between good and evil was clearly on display in this heartrending decision Israel made to save one young soldier in exchange for a thousand bloodthirsty terrorists. Everyone who watched these events can easily see the difference in how Israel and her enemies responded to the exchange. All those who let the truth guide them will have observed the same things you have noted here.
It does not make logical sense to exchange one young soldier who was kidnapped from his military service right out of high school for 1000 terrorists who will go right back to trying to kill Jews upon release. But there are times when mere logic is not enough. Sometimes we have to act with, from and for the heart.
The first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion said,"May every Jewish mother know that she has put her son under the care of commanders who are up to the task."
Many are criticizing Prime Minister Netanyahu for having made this costly exchange. Some accuse him of being cynically political or of having lost his strong anti-terrorism point of view. Neither of those are true. Netanyahu was simply responding in his generation to what Ben Gurion rightly said every Israeli Jewish mother must be able to count on.
This was a "Saving Private Ryan" moment for Israel. It will not make them weaker defending against the enemy, but it will gird them all to know what a single young Israeli soldier's life is worth to the nation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell said Mr. Hanson. It absolutely burns me up that the U.S. continues to bank roll this cabal of killers whose thirst for the blood of inocents is unquenchable.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think there is no rational or logical best choice - all choices are bad and who knows which is worse? Men are not potatoes so you cannot say whether one man is worth another or a thousand others. You cannot know if more Jews will die from the release of the terrorists. But in the end the whole thing is clarifying. Israel is a nation that values life; the Palestinians worship death. Israel keeps faith with her solders; Palestine sends her sons and daughters to die worthless deaths.
If nothing else is gained at least now Israel can kill some of these terrorists in military actions instead of paying to keep them in prison...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think troops are always better-motivated when they know they won't be left behind.
God bless the IDF. God bless Israel.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNow that the math has been settled - by the Palestinians (one Jew's life is worth 1,000 arabs), one must ponder the consequences.
Did they know what follows from this, that they have already agreed that the proportionate response for the next Israeli casualty is 1,000 arabs?
Since Israel will be attacked by the media no matter how they respond, why not use the inevitable next Jewish casualty to shock them right back: kill 1,000 arabs the same day.
Want the whole thing to stop?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKill 1,000 members of the Saudi royal family. Presto! No more terrorism.
I am hoping, with some optimism, that the IDF has prepared for the prisoner release by planning how they will track them and direct effective fire to the areas where they congregate.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYour turn of phrase and poignant observations are always a joy even if the subjects are not. Thank you, Dr. Hanson. The Palestinians have become such a deadly joke, a Middle Eastern outpost of Michael Jackson's "Dreamland" gone badly wrong.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow leftists support the dogs that are Palestinians, and their masters, is amazing to me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse