Gilad Shalit is free

[luiz]

70% of the released Palestinians are responsible for Israeli deaths.

Here are some of those "Palestinian heroes" released:

Hussan Badran: Hamas military commander sentenced to life in prison for planning several terrorist attacks, including one suicide attack on a Sbarro pizzeria in which 15 civilians died.

Abdul al-Aziz Salaha: Involved in the lynching of two captured Israeli soldiers who were already subdued and unarmed.

Yehya Sinwar: One of the founders of Hamas military wing, has personally executed Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.

Walid Anajas: Sentenced to 36 life sentences for taking part in several terrorist attacks, including the one on Moment Cafe in 2002 in which 12 civilians died.

Those are the people being celebrated on the streets. Oh, how difficult to take sides on this conflict!

 

[Formaldehyde]

"Taking part" is very vague, especially after the "confession" was gained by torture. Does that mean he was in the vicinity when the Israeli authorities arrested every Arab nearby? Does that mean he may have known that an attack may occur and didn't notify the Israeli authorities about it? We simply don't know.

Many Palestinians in Israeli prisons are political prisoners. It is obvious that the Israeli government typically wants retribution from all Palestinians for the actual crimes of the few. They don't seem to care whether the person was directly involved or not. Merely being a suspected member of Hamas or even a trained engineer is usually sufficient reason enough.

I really don't see how anybody can "take sides" with either one. Both governments engage in so many reprehensible acts.

 

[civ2]

Thank G-d!
That's the only thing I can tell.
Also, speaking of G-d, He has His ways to deal with real criminals, so don't you worry.
(And the chance for former prisoners to infiltrate through the border is actually much slimmer than for others, I do hope so...)

 

[nivi]

"Taking part" is very vague, especially after the "confession" was gained by torture. Does that mean he was in the vicinity when the Israeli authorities arrested every Arab nearby? Does that mean he may have known that an attack may occur and didn't notify the Israeli authorities about it? We simply don't know.

Many Palestinians in Israeli prisons are political prisoners. It is obvious that the Israeli government typically wants retribution from all Palestinians for the actual crimes of the few. They don't seem to care whether the person was directly involved or not. Merely being a suspected member of Hamas or even a trained engineer is usually sufficient reason enough.

Palestinians - Innocent, untill proven gui ..... I mean innocent always. Duh, how could I be so confused.

 

[Ajidica]

To be fair, the US State department still criticizes Israel over the number of civilians, primarily Palestinian, who are held without charge or in extrajudicial prisons.

 

[civ2]

nivi
Even though for some (not you, of course; there are some "specific" guys here) it may sound "aggressive" or any other type of "wrong" (even though the real WRONG, is their attitude ONLY).
I.DON'T.CARE.
The thing is:
It's not "Pals are always right", but rather "Jews are always wrong", thus resulting in "terrorists can kill children if they call it 'freedom war', as long as the receiving end is Jewish".
Because:
I don't see any other "excuses" for such MURDEROUS behavior.

 

[nivi]

To be fair, the US State department still criticizes Israel over the number of civilians, primarily Palestinian, who are held without charge or in extrajudicial prisons.

Yes, but none of those were released.

 

[Ajidica]

I haven't looked into what type of prisoners were released, but if I remember the reuters report correctly the prisoners weren't convicted on terrorism in grounds. Rather, the strongest charge among them was violent assault, which would be non-fatal.

 

[Formaldehyde]

To be fair, the US State department still criticizes Israel over the number of civilians, primarily Palestinian, who are held without charge or in extrajudicial prisons.

Every other human rights organization states the same thing:

Israel: Follow Prisoner Exchange by Ending Blockade

(Jerusalem) – Israel and Hamas should follow the announced prisoner exchange with measures to improve human rights, Human Rights Watch said today. Israel should end its punitive closure of Gaza, which Israeli leaders have said was partly to pressure Hamas to release captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, but which extends far beyond denying military shipments to Hamas. Hamas and Israel should also ensure that everyone in their custody is treated humanely.

“The prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas should mark the beginning of an era in which all parties respect basic rights,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Gaza’s civilians should no longer suffer under Israel’s punitive blockade, and Hamas should end abuses of detainees, whether Israeli or Palestinian.”

According to Hamas and Israeli officials, the exchange deal’s terms would have Israel release 477 Palestinian prisoners specified by Hamas on October 18, and another 550 prisoners in two months, after the release of Sergeant First Class Shalit. The Israeli cabinet voted to approve the terms of the exchange on October 12.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly spoken out against Hamas’s prolonged incommunicado detention of Shalit, which constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment and may amount to torture.

Israeli political leaders have repeatedly linked Shalit’s captivity to the continued broad restriction on the movement of people and goods into and out of the Gaza Strip. Although Israel removed its forces and settlements from Gaza in 2005, it fully controls access to Gaza by air and sea, and together with Egypt, which has tended to act in coordination with Israel, access to Gaza by land.

Israel also linked its aerial bombing of Gaza’s sole electricity power station on June 28, 2006, to Shalit’s capture two days earlier and later prevented full repairs to the station, limiting its potential capacity to 80 megawatts instead of the 140 megawatts of electricity it was designed to produce. Because of the blockade, the power station depends on fuel shipments from Israel, which the Palestinian Authority pays for with international financial support. But the Israeli government has limited fuel shipments below levels required to meet the station’s diminished capacity. The power station’s reduced capacity has caused Gaza residents to experience an average of eight hours of blackouts each day.

The Israel Prison Service published the names of the 477 Palestinian prisoners to be freed for public comment and objections on October 16, 48 hours prior to their release. According to the Prison Service, 162 prisoners from the West Bank will be sent to Gaza and 40 will be deported abroad, and barred from returning to their homes. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits individual or mass forcible transfers or deportations from occupied territory to any other country, “regardless of their motive.”

Israeli media reported that many of those being released have been convicted of attacks on civilians and have served only a fraction of their sentence.Around 280 of the prisoners are currently serving life sentences. Insofar as commutations reduce sentences below an appropriate level for the severity of the crime in question, it would effectively amount to immunity for serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law and violate the duty to prosecute serious international crimes.

Human Rights Watch said that Hamas should stop blocking access to Palestinian detainees by the Independent Commission for Human Rights, the official Palestinian human rights ombudsman. Hamas has blocked the ombudsman from detention centers operated by the internal security service for three years, and from Gaza’s central prison since December 2010. In September 2011, the ombudsman documented six allegations of torture in Hamas custody. Human Rights Watch has documentedtorture by Hamas internal security officials as well as by Hamas police detectives and anti-narcotics agencies.

Israel has refused to allow Gaza residents to visit relatives in prisons inside Israel since June 2007, after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which operated buses for families to visit prisoners, “over 700 families from Gaza have been prevented from seeing their detained relatives.” With the exception of some businessmen and medical patients, Israel bars nearly all Gaza residents from entering Israel or traveling to the West Bank, in violation of its obligations under international law to permit family visits to prisoners.

As of August 31, 5,204 Palestinians were in Israeli prisons, according to the Israel Prisons Service. Of the total, 272 were in administrative detention without charge. Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are currently on hunger strike to protest Israel’s prolonged solitary confinement of some prisoners, shackling during family visits, and other measures.

HRW fairly blames both sides for their numerous human rights violations and even opposes the release of anybody who was justly convicted of a serious crime. They also point out that denying 40 prisoners the right to return to their homeland is a form of ethnic cleansing which is in violation of international law.

What do you want to bet the blockade of Gaza continues? That the power station remains at partial capacity? That the governments of both sides continue to violate the basic human rights of others even though one of the excuses is now gone?

 

[Silurian]

Israel was always on the loosing side while dealing with enemies and terrorists.
Unlike Israel, all the Arab neighbors have death penalty for prisoners and obviously terrorists kill their prisoners.

I am not sure what you mean by this.


Israel has won many wars.

Israel has the death penalty and so do many other states.

Gilad shalit was not killed, so does that mean that Hamas are not terrorists.

Israeli forces have killed prisoners who have been completely incapacitated, does that mean that Israeli forces are terrorists.

 

[civ2]

MY FINAL SUGGESTION:
Israel "unblocks" Palestine etc.
BUT
The moment another bomb goes off, and is defined as a TERRORIST attack...
Israel has full (INTERNATIONAL) right to BOMB the Palestinian "headquarters" (or wherever the "big shots" sit).
ALSO
All terrorists will be EXECUTED without any chance for release.

 

[Winner]

Please don't take it as antagonizing, Winner, but I'm really curious in this case: as a notorious pro-Israeli poster, do you think this is a good decision? I mean, I'm obviously happy for Gilat Shalit and his family that he's free now. But Israel had to pay a high price for this one, on multiple levels.

What kind of precedent does it set? How dangerous are these released prisoners still (I've heard most of them spent 20+ years in Israeli prisons)? What about the families of their victims?

And worst of all, in the long term sense, was it really smart to give Hamas a victory it can now brag about among the Palestinians while the much more moderate Fatah is denied even miniscule successes?

These are all good points, but I still think it was the right choice. Yes, a lot of terrorists got away and yes, Hamás will try to abduct more soldiers in the future, but in the end, the necessity of getting Gilad out of captivity trumps all that. It was necessary not only to end the suffering of him and his family, but also to boost the morale of the nation and other soldiers, who need to know that in the end their country will not abandon them, no matter what.

And if you followed the news, you could see that politicians on all sides are milking this story - Netanyahu had an emotive speech about how he told the family "I got your son back" ( ), Hamás will no doubt present it as another step in the struggle to drive the Zionists out of the promised land, even Abbás is trying to jump on the bandwagon, afraid that it might strengthen his Hamás rivals.

 

[Formaldehyde]

MY FINAL SUGGESTION:
Israel "unblocks" Palestine etc.
BUT
The moment another bomb goes off, and is defined as a TERRORIST attack...
Israel has full (INTERNATIONAL) right to BOMB the Palestinian "headquarters" (or wherever the "big shots" sit).
ALSO
All terrorists will be EXECUTED without any chance for release.

Does that mean the Palestinian government also has the right to execute all the suspected Israeli terrorists on the spot, and to bomb the Knesset the next time one of them is killed by a settler?

 

[civ2]

Moderator Action: Post content removed. Please do not be rude to other posters. Either address their points or ignore them.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I wish both sides would just sit down and talk nicely without throwing bombs at each other and I bet within a few hours they would come to an agreement.

 

[NickyJ]

Good to hear he's alive and free. I'm deeply worried about the pack of terrorists now running around freely, though. I'm not saying every released palestinian prisoner is a terrorist, but a good bunch of them are confirmed criminals. It's not impossible that the Hamas secretly hopes that the IDF lashes out on them, to use it for their own wicked propaganda.

Agreed. I would have hoped that it could be less than a thousand terrorists and prisoners, but it had to be done.

 

[luiz]

I haven't looked into what type of prisoners were released, but if I remember the reuters report correctly the prisoners weren't convicted on terrorism in grounds. Rather, the strongest charge among them was violent assault, which would be non-fatal.

You remember wrongly. Most are convicted on terrorist charges, and a full 70% is responsible for deaths. See the some individuauls I listed.

 

[Winner]

You remember wrongly. Most are convicted on terrorist charges, and a full 70% is responsible for deaths. See the some individuauls I listed.

4 of those released were directly responsible for a bombing of a school bus. True heroes of Palestinian liberation.

 

[Luckymoose]

Why would anyone exchange 1024 terrorists linked prisoners for one conscripted soldier? This is just bad politics.

 

[bathsheba666]

MY FINAL SUGGESTION:
Israel "unblocks" Palestine etc.
BUT
The moment another bomb goes off, and is defined as a TERRORIST attack...
Israel has full (INTERNATIONAL) right to BOMB the Palestinian "headquarters" (or wherever the "big shots" sit).
ALSO
All terrorists will be EXECUTED without any chance for release.

Do you happen to think your SUGGESTION is in any way a SOLUTION ?