Israel’s trading more than a thousand terrorists for Gilad Shalit is stupid. No matter how much we like and emphasize with Shalit, it makes no sense. A thousand reinstated terrorists running around Israel will cause more than a thousand deaths.
Netanyahu is using a psychological technique called short-term hedonism by the Albert Ellis Institute of Rational Behavior. Netanyahu is giving his country the immediate pleasure of freeing Shalit while inadvertently giving them the long term dissatisfaction of endangering many lives.
As a comparison, look at Gitmo where we freed enemy combatants only to see them kill Americans again. Putative kindness backfires on us. It leads to our demise.
It reminds me of the idiotic, much vaunted Greek saying—“It is better to set a thousand men free than to execute one innocent man.” And what about those freed thousand criminals who go out to kill willy nilly? Respect for Shalit’s life shows disrespect for other innocent citizens who will become victims of false charity.
