Prisoner exchange
Reader comment on item: Hezbollah's Victory, Israel's Decline

Submitted by Ronnie Garber (Israel), Feb 5, 2004 at 15:38

Mr. Pipes,
We here in Israel have many concerns re PM Ariel Sharon. We thought this "war lion" would take on the terrorists, the murderers, the thieves, in one fell swoop when he came into office. We thought maybe it would be a 2-week campaign at most. When Sbarro's was blown up and entire families were wiped out in Jerusalem in August, 2000, we were poised for a fierce reaction.

What did we get? A "policy of restraint." This policy lasted for 8 months, during which time hundreds more innocent Jewish lives were taken by drive-by shootings, bombings, knifings, stonings, bus explosions, etc.
After the Passover massacre, at the Park Hotel in Netanya, what did we get?
Jenin. Finally a definitive response.
But was it really a response the way people should respond when their country, their children, their elderly are literally being slaughtered?

Israel went into Jenin with no air power as cover for its brave soldiers who were instructed not to fire on little children, to handle with kid gloves the "innocent" ... population. But our soldiers who didn't fire upon a child, were blown to pieces by the bomb belt this "innocent" child was wearing. Our soldiers walked into booby-trapped houses, ran outside of the houses, only to be gunned down by snipers on rooftops.

This sort of response, engineered time and again by PM Sharon, will ultimately lead to the destruction of the Jewish state. We have able and willing soldiers who have been sitting with their hands tied for 3 years. And we have a "war lion" who has lost his roar.

This latest prisoner exchange is really nothing new, when viewed as a part of PM Sharon's appeasement war of attrition. Three dead bodies and a Jewish businessman exchanged for 460 Arab terrorists? At first this seems lopsided, horribly skewed.

But how about 20,000 terror attacks in 3 years against a tiny Jewish state and now this "war lion" is about to evacuate 7,500 Jews from Gaza with their tails between their legs so that even more innocent lives will be lost?
How about that for lopsidedness?

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