Exchanges

The terrorist, comparing their ethos, with that of the West, was, “your weakness is that you worship life, whereas our strength is that we worship death!” The truth is the opposite. We will always win in the end when we face such enemies.

Yesterday, the Israeli government sanctioned an exchange between it and the terrorist organization, Hezbollah. In one direction went the bodies of the two captured Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eidad Regev who’s kidnap sparked the brief war two years ago when Israel unsuccessfully tried to recover their men.

The Lebanese government and people joined Hezbollah in celebrating the return of their heroes. They particularly praised Samir Qantar, who has been in an Israeli jail for 30 years. His crime was to murder a policeman, and then he murdered a young man called Danny Haran in his Nahariya apartment on the Israeli coast. But this killer’s blood lust was not satiated, whilst the victims wife hid with her 2 year old daughter in a crawl space, witnessing these events, Samir Qantar, hero of the freedom struggle, grabbed hold of the Israeli family’s 4 year old daughter and beat her to death by crushing her skull with his rifle butt. Whilst he was doing this Danny Haran’s wife, overcome with grief and terror accidentally smothered her other daughter to death.

Samir Qantar has never shown any remorse for destroying the lives of his victims and yesterday he was greeted as a hero. Bands played in celebration as he was greeted by the President and Prime Minister of Lebanon and kissed on each cheek. A banner was held aloft which stated, “Israel is shedding tears of pain, Lebanon is shedding tears of joy.”

In the other direction the Israelis had released 5 prisoners and the remains of 199 other Hezbollah terrorists. I use the word terrorists because that is how they are regarded, as an organization, by many international bodies. Their declared purpose is the destruction of Israel by any means and they are funded and trained and supplied by friends in Syria and Iran.

Despite this inequality in exchange the majority of Israeli’s support it on the basis that their country never abandons its people, alive or dead, they will bring them home to their families.

The British newspapers make a point today of stating the fact that there are 8,400 Palestinians in Israel’s jails. These people are in the jail for various offences, including murder, and not because they are Palestinians.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed Wednesday's long-awaited prisoner exchange between Israel and the Lebanese based group Hezbollah, following many months of UN-backed mediation efforts.

Ban is "deeply satisfied that the humanitarian aspects of Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006) have finally been met today," said his spokesperson’s statement, when referring to the resolution which ended the Israel and Hezbollah 2006 conflict.

"The secretary-general is looking forward to witnessing further positive moves as envisaged during the negotiations," the statement continued, which added that Ban has received messages to that effect from both Israel’s government and the leadership of Hezbollah.

The diplomat added, that he hoped there will soon see action toward the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit and of Palestinian prisoners, as these steps will contribute to improving the overall humanitarian situation in the region.

The BBC reported that now the Hezbollah has their prisoners returned to them they had unfinished business with Israel in revenge for that country’s “assassination” of Imad Mughniyah, a top Hezbollah leader, who was killed in a car bomb earlier in the year in Damascus. Hezbollah blamed Israel for the assassination. If this was an Israeli operation, and that appears most likely, that was a huge success for Israel who long considered Mughniyah The epitome of the 'Axis of Evil' and who, with America has blamed numerous terrorists acts on him, including his being involved in the 1983 and 1984 bombing of US and French barracks in Beirut, the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and the kidnappings of Westerners (all of which occurred before the creation of Hezbollah in 1985).

Mughniyah was a symbol of the early period of Hezbollah, possibly one of the co-founders of the movement and that Mughniyah was held in high esteem not only in Hezbollah, but also among other Lebanese Shia movements. What is equally certain is that having turned Mughniyah into an arch-villain the Israelis did score a huge PR success when they killed him.

All civilized people will join me in the hope that Shalit has not been murdered whilst he has been a prisoner in the safe keeping of his captors.