Moral equivalency: Hamas extorts terrorist release for VIDEO.

A brief video of Shalit showing him in relatively good health, claiming that he read the news in the newspaper Falastin (though he probably cannot read Arabic), and praising the "Majahadin" (should be Mujahedin) of the Izzedin al Qassam Brigades, cost Israel the release of twenty Palestinian prisoners. For 200 prisoners we can get a full length movie perhaps and for 1,000 they may rent us a full season of The Sopranos. The eye glasses that were supposedly delivered to Shalit were not in evidence, but otherwise he did not look to be in really bad condition, considering. Nonetheless, his father insisted that he is "rotting in Hamas captivity" and "no effort should be spared" to free him. Nobody remarked on the frustrating irony that while Israel is being raked over the coals for "human rights violations," Israel must release 20 prisoners in order to obtain a video of Shalit. When it is a matter of blaming Israel, Hamas can be pictured as a responsible combatant with "legitimate" rights. But Hamas is iself exempt from international law. When they have to comply with the law they can be shown to be nothing but thugs and kidnappers who have no legal obligations, and do not have to treat Shalit as a prisoner of war. Nobody, least of all Judge Goldstone, seems to care.
The cost of the video is far more than 20 released prisoners, since Hamas gained a fairly great propaganda victory and some "legitimation. " The cost of a prisoner trade that would bring about Shalit's release would be far higher - about a thousand prisoners in all. Due to the relentless pressure of the Shalit industry, the price goes up all the time. But that would only be a down payment on the real price. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has promised to kidnap more Israeli soldiers in order to extort the release of more Palestinian prisoners. Hamas would gain legitimation, reopening of the Gaza checkpoints and Palestinian support as the liberator of Palestinian prisoners. And of course, a lot of those prisoners would go back into the terror business as soon as they are released. Hamas are especially anxious to make a deal now, before the Palestinian elections.
When Defense Minister Ehud Barak described the "release Shalit lobby" as guilty of whining, he was not exaggerating. His declaration that soldiers must be ready to die for their country would seem to be a truism that requires no defense. However, his remarks were met with heated and scarcely believable argument:...... Did Israelis forget so quickly that independence, sovereignty, nationhood has a price? Have we all already forgotten the bitter humiliation of the shameful and senseless Hezbollah prisoner swap, in which a few dead bodies were exchanged for the murderous Samir Kuntar, who was received as a hero, and hundreds of others?****Kuntar was the infamous thug who murdered an Israeli father in front of his 4-year old daughter and then bashed in the child's head against a rock! Letting him (and others) go in return merely for two corpses was an absurdity.**** At the time of the Hezbollah swap, It was Ehud Barak himself who justified the swap: "We have a moral obligation to return our soldiers from a mission whether they are alive or unfortunately dead. That's what guided the government's decision."...