On Wednesday, the outgoing Israel government’s Security Cabinet approved Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s proposal to link the Israeli POW Cpl. Gilad Shalit’s release to any future security arrangement with the Hamas.

Now, say government sources in Jerusalem, the ball is in Hamas’ court. “If they want to rebuild Gaza using the crossings to get goods, then let them release Shalit,” they said.

The Shalit family sounded encouraged Wednesday by the unanimous decision. “We are pleased but the road to his release is still long,” his father, Noam Shalit, said.

However, no Israeli government cabinet member objected to the idea that Israel would pay a heavy ransom in order to free its POW.

That ransom would involve Israel freeing hundreds of Arab terrorists who were convicted of murdering 1,178 men, women and children in Israel since September 2000, in hundreds of lethal attacks that included bus bombings, drive-by shootings, restaurant explosions, hit-and-run attacks and worse.

The list of victims can be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/29478.

The Bulletin asked the Israeli government why Israel must pay ransom to Hamas with the following eight questions:

1.If Israel pays ransom to a regime which has kidnapped a citizen of the free world, would that not create a precedent that would reverberate across the globe?

2. Would freeing convicted terrorists not create an incentive for Hamas to kidnap anyone else then demand even greater ransom in the future for their freedom?

3. Why is the government of Israel feeding the world with a monolithic message, as if the only way to free the one kidnapped Israeli citizen in Gaza, Cpl. Shalit, would be to trade hundreds of lethal murderers for his freedom?

4. Why does the government of Israel not announce a total economic shutdown of Gaza until the Gaza regime hands over a kidnapped citizen of Israel?

5. Is this because economic sanctions would cause leading Israeli firms to lose profits that they now gain from exports to the Palestinian Authority?

(According to a study released in mid-January by Globes, Israel’s daily business paper, Israeli firms currently export $2.7 billion of products to the Palestinian Authority.)

6. Is the Israeli government pressured to conduct “business as usual” with the Hamas regime in Gaza by “Dor Alon,” Israel’s leading gasoline conglomerate, which owns a contract as the prime supplier of gasoline to Gaza?

7. Since the new owners of “Dor Alon” now include former Israel Finance Minister, Mr. Beiga Shochat and the former president of the World Jewish Congress, Mathew Bronfman, are either Mr. Shochat or Mr. Bronfman pressuring the government of Israel to conduct business as usual with the Hamas regime in Gaza instead of clamping down economic sanctions on the Hamas regime?

8. In sum, why does Israel not impose a total economic freeze of Gaza instead of a surrender to Gaza, to forestall the prospect of a nation flooded with highly motivated convicted murderers on the streets of Israel?

Israeli government spokespeople would not answer any of these queries.

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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