{Originally appeared on the authors’ website, This Ongoing War} Why is so little mainstream media attention paid to the deaths and mayhem caused by Palestinian Arab terrorists subsequent to their release from Israeli prison sentences via one or another of the various “deals” extorted in the name of freeing a hostage (or bodies) or creating the conditions needed for spurious “peace” discussions?
We touched on this theme a week ago [“04-Oct-14: Hamas announces “a new victory”; once again, it’s about terrorists being freed from Israeli prisons'”], when we wrote that “At the moment, we don’t see any other sources for the story, but we have just begun to look.”
Without offering an answer at this point, here’s today’s news from yesterday’s first “Palestinian unity government” cabinet meeting, held in Gaza on Thursday. The report comes from AFP:
A top official within the Hamas political wing on Thursday said a further round of negotiations between Israel and the Gaza-based militant group regarding the release of security prisoners will be soon set in motion, according to the Israeli news site Walla. Mohammad Nazzal further added that indirect talks are to begin soon and that they will be held in Cairo. Hamas claims to hold the bodies of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, who died in combat in the Gaza Strip during this summer’s 50 day-long Operation Protective Edge. [i24news.tv]
We believe there would be widespread outrage if public opinion understood the extent of the damage and pain that has followed the previous terrorist-releases. It’s very bad news that the idea is once again under discussion.
UPDATE Friday 10:00
Thanks to YH who emailed just now to say IMRA had reported this morning that Yossi Beilin, an “Israeli statesman and scholar” according to his Wikipedia page, interviewed on Israel Radio’s 7:00 am new bulletin today, said “Israel must insist on trading bodies for bodies and that it would be a terrible mistake for Israel to trade live Palestinian prisoners for the release of the bodies of the two Israeli soldiers now held in the Gaza Strip”.