Say, mainstream media editors, writers, and idiots: It’s not a “prisoner swap.” It’s a ransoming of a hostage. Gilad Shalit was kidnapped and taken hostage five years ago. The Palestinians who were released all broke the law and were prisoners.
Leave it to the media to blame Israel for getting Shalit back: The New York Times is actually editorializing on how now that Shalit is home, Netanyahu is going to be more intractable than ever. Not a word about Mahmoud Abbas refusing to sit down and negotiate. No, it’s all Bibi, all the time.
Hypocrisy, thy name is State Department: Really? You’re objecting to the release of some terrorists because they took part in attacks on Americans? Really? When the government had evidence that Yasser Arafat was behind the murder of American diplomats and did nothing? How many governments, starting with Nixon, covered for that murderer instead of hunting him down and bringing him in for the double murder? Now State is suddenly getting a conscience?
And yet, there is still not a worldwide outcry: Syria is doubling down on the civilian-killing spree, and the world is just pretty much going “Tsk-tsk” and then talking about Israel and the Palestinians.
Turkey doing everything it can to hurt Israel: Turkey has declared that there’s no way in hell they will allow Israeli gas to go to Europe through pipelines in Turkey. What a surprise, considering they’re trying to steal the Cyprus gas fields. So, tell us, genius pundits, how is it that Israel can repair relations with a nation that is doing everything it can to harm Israel at every opportunity?
That’s okay, they’ll just kidnap another soldier and set her free: A Palestinian woman tried to stab an Israeli man. Yeah, they want peace. Really. They do. Shut UP. They do.
I don’t know if you remember but way back when Israel had the chance to take out Arafat in Lebanon in 1982/3 America forbade it (Weinberger and Baker most likely given the foreign policy mess they left in the region in 1983).
Sad to think how much blood was spilled in later years through that stupid decision.
Killing Arafat would not have prevented that bloodshed. While killing that swine would have been desireable and certainly ought to have been done, some other equally swinish Pali thug would have taken his place, supported by the various Arab thugocracies and the USSR, and continued the murderous rampage of the Palestinian Arabs’ thanatocracy.
Had the “US” not prevailed and Arafat not sailed into the sunset (remember the pictures of him on the boat leaving Beirut for retirement in Tunis?) but interred in a hole in the ground Baker and co., would not have been able to bring him back in the late 80s as the only “Palestinian” Israel would be permitted to deal with from the ‘point’ of peace, which unfortunately led to Oslo and the bloodshed.
Funny how nobody does any research on the Gazans he had put to death on his return, those Israel was reaching a pragmatic accord with before the Oslo farce. If Arafat was not around the Israelis could have chosen someone from within the local community and not been forced to deal with the thugs from Tunis.
All those names so prominent today are those who were exiled in Tunis with him, and accompanied him in his caravan of SUVs into Gaza.
Without him they would have been just another of the terrorist groups and “not invited to play golf with Baker and ilk”.