Swap Meet

Well, I noted this yesterday on the second anniversary of the capture of Gilad Shalit by Hamas, but it bears repeating: there has been absolutely no change in the position by the terrorist group holding Shalit, nor in the position by Hizbullah concerning the release of Goldwasser and Regev.

Both terrorist groups want the release of hundreds of terrorists in exchange for the release of those soldiers. Both will not change their demands even if the Israelis rule that the soldiers are considered dead - a change that usually brings fewer prisoners released in exchange for the return of the bodies. The threat that the Israelis will declare Goldwasser and Regev dead didn't go over well with Hizbullah, which claims that their demands will not change.

The futility of negotiations with the terrorist groups shows its ugly head once again. Israel is negotiating with those groups that seek its destruction and whose demands include the release of hundreds of terrorists from Israeli jails. Those terrorists would return to their former terror masters and resume their deadly intent. How is that in Israel's security interests?

It is not.

Israel has conducted only a limited attempt to free Shalit, and Goldwasser and Regev's whereabouts are still unknown, though it is assumed that they are somewhere in Lebanon. The terrorists remain convinced that they can wait out Israel and get the Israeli leadership to eventually cave into their demands. All the while, the families of those missing soldiers live in the agony of the unknown.

Meanwhile, Egypt has discovered seven new smuggling tunnels along with drugs and weapons heading into Gaza. Once again, we see that the terrorists have no intentions of stopping their war with Israel, and are more than willing to use any time and space offered in the form of a hudna to bolster their war effort.

And Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ordered that the Gaza border crossings remain closed following yesterday's kassam attacks on Israel. That should have been a given - followed swiftly by a resumption of attacks on the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank.

UPDATE:
Hamas says that it will not police the ceasefire, which means that Islamic Jihad and the other terror groups operating in Gaza could carry out their attacks and Hamas gets to claim they have honored the ceasefire. Welcome to the triangle offense.