To the Editor:
I don’t like how Israel capitulates to superior demands by the Palestinians. Due to the fact that Israel is painstakingly an examplary democracy, and is a transparently honest and fair nation, Israel continues to agree to demands that no nation on earth could accept. Try as hard as I can, I can never see a Great Britain that would exchange 1,027 prisoners for one citizen. I can never see a United States that would accept 1,027 criminals freed just to effect the release of one citizen in captivity.
Don’t misunderstand, I agree fully that Gilad Shalit should be released. But at the freedom granted 1,027 criminals who have in no way renounced violence and criminality against Israel, I totally disagree.
How can Israel sit in a Germany-mediated negotiation on exchange of prisoners between Hamas and Israel and surrender 1,027 hardened criminals to go home in exchange for one Israeli soldier? Who represented Israel in such negotiation? Why did he allow the Palestinians to successfully win the obstinacy war? Why does Israel surrender at such negotiations in order to appear civilized and correct in the view of the enlightened world, to go as far as accepting to release murderers, arsonists, men who rejoice at killing an Israeli and who would continue to feel so?
You embolden Hamas by such capitulations. You tell Palestinians the best way to bring Israel to its knees! You tell the rest of the world that the Palestinians have something to agitate for, a stake they claim unrelentingly while you relent (to appear magnanimous and examplary in fairness). But the more we do this, the more the world sympathizes with the Palestinians on their claims.
Charles Emelogu
Lagos, Nigeria
