Gershon Baskin, who proudly claims to have helped negotiate the release of Gilad Shalit, which came about only through the release of 1027 terrorists, released the following statement following the report that the terrorist that killed Officer Baruch Mizrachi was released in the Shalit deal he helped facilitate:
I am very pleased that they caught the murderer of the policeman Baruch Mizrahi that was murdered on Passover eve. I am very sad to know that the murderer was one of the prisoners released in the Schalit deal.
We always knew that something like this could happen.
I suggest to all of those who would like to blame and accuse me of something that you send your accusations to the Prime Minister and the 25 other Ministers who voted for the deal. I had absolutely nothing to do with the decision making or the selection of the names of the prisoners released.
The primary responsibility for selection of the names goes to the Head of the Shin Bet. Those who recommended to the government to accept the deal were the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Chief of Police, the Head of the Mossad and the Head of the Shin Bet.
For those of you who have a lot of complaints and anger, I would suggest that you first ask yourself: what would you do and think if Gilad Schalit was your child?
Noam Shalit, who pressured successive Israeli governments to make the lopsided prisoner swap instead of demanding action by international human rights groups, told YNet on the arrest, “I didn’t know that one of the terrorists freed in the deal killed Baruch Mizrachi. It wasn’t me that put together the list of prisoners to release.” Shalit added, “We didn’t demand the release of these prisoners or others.”
For the record, here is an ad, run by the Free Gilad Shalit campaign, consisting of former Shabak chiefs demanding the release of terrorists, and even saying they won’t pose a danger:
You decide.