the main reason for holding the prisoners is NOT to use as bargaining chips. the Israeli "leadership" might see it this way but it clearly does not know how to bargain. it knows how to make concessions. the main reason to keep these animals is to annouce that there is a price to be paid for their barbarism. another reason is to prevent the detainees from committing more savagery. if one does not understand these facts, he is a fool and should be dismissed as such.

The argument should be that anyone convicted of either murder, accessory to murder or attempted murder should never be released before their sentence runs out. They already get 1/3 of their sentence written off semi-automatically and their statements of "remorse" are not worth the paper their printed on. Enough of these people are subsequently re-arrested after killing someone in a terror attack that there is no justification in pardoning these bastards.

Shmuel Gordon writes "they are not murderers based on any reasonable criterion." In fact there are whole bodies of law that make an accomplice/participant to a murder equally culpable to the direct killer. I would like him to give an example of one Western country where the law gives any latitude to individuals knowingly participating in a murder because of a 'lesser' role. I am genuinely baffled by the assertion "that boundary between murderers to others has been completely blurred." In every Western legal system the very acts he attributes to individuals who participate would in fact have them facing homicide charges, most likely murder, and nothing less. The lines in fact are quite clear. The only one blurring them seems to be Mr. Gordon. For consideration, Josef Cohen

are we fighting terror or not? the secular elite like these people have no god and no belief in israel. they think that their enemy just wants to make nice with them.

Penalties for terrorists & their accomplices should be more severe. We should re-institute the death penalty for those "with blood on their hands" and for those that dispatch them. Other accomplices including those that finance them should face life in prison with no parole or reduction in sentence. The security prisoners are not "bargaining chips" - they are criminals. If we want bargaining chips, we can arrest their political leaders. Prisoner releases should become illegal - not a subject for slimy political deals. In addition, prison facilities should be modified to allow for more solitary confinement. No cell-phones, very limited visitation rights, & legal representation only in writing. This is not a rehab program, it is punishment. One comment struck me - that holding prisoners increases hostility against us. How much more hostile could they be? We are not in the business of making friends. Nothing we do increases or decreases hostility towards us. On the contrary, every concession & "goodwill" gesture is interpreted as weakness. Terrorism is a tactic - deterrence requires that it have painful & irreversible consequences. Terrorism must be made to be a losing proposition, too "costly" to engage in. Prisoner releases make a mockery of our judicial system.

If Israeli Goverment had the guts to get Shalit,ect ect back, either by some swap or by flattening the enemies' camps, then all this talk wouldn't have been such nonsense

MURDER in any civilised country. You leftist morons want to release murderers... What will you say when they come and murder YOU?

I bet you that this article was written with direct participation of Olmert's office. My guess is that a large scale prisoner release is part of the discussions Olmert is having with Abbas. This article is to "test the waters" & prepare the public - an attempt to lend some intellectual legitimacy to a distasteful & unpopular deal. These articles do not just suddenly appear for no reason. Even when there is no outright collusion, you can be sure that this was the result of conversations with Kadima or Labour party officials. Never trust politicians - they use the media to manipulate public opinion & obscure issues instead of illuminate them. In any case, this is an effort to "muddy the waters" on an issue that is not just unpopular but clearly both self-defeating & morally reprehensible.

Somebody who knowingly drives a suicide bomber to his target, builds his bomb, scouts the area, etc, is knowingly acting in the commission of mass murder. This category is accepted in the civil law in many countries. The people who recruit, train, arm and transport a terrorist are much more dangerous than the murderer, since they can repeat their work again and again with minimal risk to themselves - unless they are in prison. It terrifies me to learn that you are teaching young people that releasing the most dangerous members of the terrorist networks is (a) harmless (b) helpful and (c) easily reversed, as if soldiers and policemen will not have to enter hostile territory to again seize these terrible men.

No instead we get heightened police patrols; Clear these are really dangerous men. Lets release them into Egypt. They'll make it back to Gaza, but in the meantime they will be to busy getting back to work on terror. Like children, keep them occupied with frivolous tasks.

No Prisoners = No problems

I didn't really know who moshe was, other then the few ynet mentions where he was made out to be a crazy fanatic. But after I looked up a little, I thought to myself, ....If I could vote, it would go to moshe feiglin. But the reason?.....because he says what he thinks.....and it seems that politicians(all of them) lie through their teeth daily.