Israeli Soldier Gilad Shalit released from captivity

It sure is.

It is also about time to release the thousands of Palestinians who are guilty of non-violent civil disobedience from Israeli jails.

 

How many more Palestinians are detained in their Camp?

 

They aren't all "Hamas activists." Some were released to the West Bank, some to Gaza, a few inside the Green Line, and two to Egypt. Some were terrorists responsible for killing people, and certainly not all were Hamas.

There are plenty of negatives here...but I think repeating them here would be pointless both for those not already engaged in reading the news, and for those that don't bother.

 

They are already talking about kidnapping more Israelis to exchange for more prisoners. Who would have thought that giving in to terrorist demands would result in the terrorism being repeated?

 

10% of the Israeli general population,if polls are to be believed, most of them the hard-right wingers, with a sprinkle of weary pundits who were always skeptical of the deal. Also, some high ranking PA officials who in fairness, had little to gain from it.

 

I like how every media outlet reported this yesterday as "Israeli Freed From Captivity" and just pretended like the 1000 released Palestinians were not somehow in the exact same predicament.

Terrorism is such a bull**** term.

 

The 1000 guy and 27 gals that were released were all there for different reasons. There are another 5000 Palestinians in custody. Some are being held for suspicious associations, some are being held for actually killing people and no doubt deserve to be locked up.

The only thing they have in common is that they were all put there by military courts (and denied anything that resembles civillian law). There's no differentiation between the guy who blows up a pizza parlor full of kids and say, a Palestinian kid who violated a curfew that "looks suspicious." There's also no differentiation between someone defending in their own home in the West Bank or un unprovoked attack across the Green Line. That's the way Occupation works.



Also, I don't think the Israeli government ever officially said that the detainees released were all "terrorists" unless you count the wing-nuts.

 

This Israeli cat was in captivity for 5 years. Some of those Palestinians?

over 25 years

 

That's a bit unfair, MC Mark. Gilad Shilit was wearing a uniform and legally serving in Israel's armed forced and was by law, a prisoner of war. I'm all for enforcing international law on Israel's not-so-legal method of using the system to lock up Palestinians, but it's a different topic.

With all due respect, Israel's sentencing is a hell of a lot more lenient than the legal system in Texas, and the prison population is considerably lower as a percentage of population. I'd much rather be tried for a felony in Israel than in Texas. I'd likely serve a third of the time or less.

My issue with Israel's penal system is how it works in an extra-legal way for the Occupation. Under the auspicies of the military, the line between a political dissident, a common criminal, and an enemy combatant is blurred and all are denied the due process availed to people arrested by police inside the green line. Israel in other words, has no need for a Guantanamo, and all the lawyers in the world won't change that practice until the Occupation is over, peace or no peace.

Hundreds of the people released in the deal were likely minor offenders or even innocent, but hundreds more were people who proudly admitted to pre-meditated murder of civillians. Some of those civillians were people I knew, and happened in places I frequent. It's reasonable to suspect many will try again and some will succeed. Hell, even the PA leadership didn't want many of these guys released, but they had no say in the deal.

Had the deal been a one for one swap of Martin Bargouti or something similar that would have benefited society in the PA more and Hamas less, I might have been more excited about the deal. THAT at least would have helped the political cause of a two-state solution, but no one in power here seems very interested in that.

A lot of Israelis assume I'm either a heartless b*stard or a diehard right wingnut for not cheerleading the deal (the deal had 90% support). I'm glad he's free, but I can't think of any other nation in the world that would compromise their own security like that for one guy. Nor could I imagine David Ben-Gurion or Golda Meir or Menachim Begin agreeing to something like that.

To me this deal rewards Hamas for terrorism and helps their PR amongst Palestinians, punishes the PA for moderation, humiliates Abbas for cooperation and non-violent protest, gives Bibi political capital to avoid negotiations and makes the town I live in a bit more nervous about going out at night.

It also sends the message that the Two-state solution is a ruse, and that nothing will appeal to Israel's leadership except violence. And...no one seems to mind.

 

What is your source for this?

 

Palestinians are unpersons; Jewish Israelis are persons.

Courtesy of Noam Chomski.

Oh I forgot to add unauthorized aliens are unpersons, corporations are persons.

 

I'm mostly seeing it in right-wing media, but that doesn't make it untrue. This IS Hamas we are talking about.

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=241553

 

It's more complicated than that. Even among right-wingers, there isn't a consensus on who a "Jew" is. Ironically, that's why Lieberman got so many votes: many Russians are discriminated for not being "Jewish" enough from an Orthodox religious definition.

But they all agree that refugees and the children of foreign workers born in Israel are a huge "threat" to the "Jewishness" of the nation.

Druze who serve in the army are ok, but Bedouin who do aren't. And don't get me started on the Ashkenazi vs. Mizrachi thing...

There are oh so many shades of subtlety in the bigotry color-wheel, Glynch
If you think Jim Crow-era Southern Democrats spoke in racist code, wait until you meet the Knesset.

Without fear, uncertainty and doubt re: Palestinians think of how unraveled the society would be! Think of the children! And draft them!

 

NPR had an interview with a Palestinian woman who was calling on every Palestinian to kidnap an Israeli soldier. There were interviews with others who talked about using a peace process etc. so there were different opinions, but some Palestinians were encouraged to use kidnapping as a way to get prisoners released.

 

The excitement was certainly muted in the Mukata'a. And likely it was mandatory in Gaza City.

And last time I checked, neither of those places are in Israel. There were only six detainees released in Israel...and AFAIK none of those were terrorists.

 

Several others have already provided you with links, but it is also right in the article from the original post.

 

Exact same predicament? Hundreds of these guys were murderers. They were not kidnapped, they were brought to justice.