The Israelis just agreed to swap more than a thousand Palestinian terrorists for the kidnapped Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit. Schalit, his family and friends – indeed all Israelis – have suffered under the terrible burden of his captivity over the last five years. It is wonderful that he will at last be free. But the price is fearfully and unacceptably high. For there is no question that other Israeli blood will be spilled by some of the terrorists that Israel is releasing. The torment that future victims of this wicked deal will bear might exceed those borne by the Schalit family – at this point one only lacks the names of the victims. Furthermore, the Arab terrorists learn from this deal that kidnapping Israeli soldiers pays a handsome dividend in the form of the eventual release of scores of their bloodthirsty comrades. It will only increase their incentive for carrying out more kidnappings. Israeli soldiers will be taken – we lack only their names.
These thoughts are explored more fully and eloquently by Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post. Here is just a portion of her thoughts:
It is a statistical certainty that the release of 1,027 terrorists for Schalit will lead to the murder of untold numbers of Israelis. It has happened every single time that these blood ransoms have been paid. It will happen now.
Untold numbers of Israelis who are now sitting in their succas and celebrating Jewish freedom, who are driving in their cars, who are standing on line at the bank, who are sitting in their nursery school classrooms painting pictures of Torah scrolls for Simhat Torah will be killed for being Jewish while in Israel because Netanyahu has made this deal. The unrelenting pain of their families, left to cope with their absence, will be unimaginable.
This is a simple fact and it is beyond dispute.
It is also beyond dispute that untold numbers of IDF soldiers and officers will be abducted and held hostage. Soldiers now training for war or scrubbing the floors of their barracks, or sitting at a pub with their friends on holiday leave will one day find themselves in a dungeon in Gaza or Sinai or Lebanon undergoing unspeakable mental and physical torture for years. Their families will suffer inhuman agony.
The only thing we don’t know about these future victims is their names. But we know what will become of them as surely as we know that night follows day.