right. Mr I give up I'm tired of fighting!

Israel made it very plain that they were willing to make extraordinary concessions that no other country on the face of the earth would be willing to make under like circumstances. Hamas has to keep ratcheting up the demands, because Gilad Shalit is not alive. But the world is watching, this time. Like I said on another thread -- Israel can conduct a very extensive second operation in Gaza, and that part of the world that matters will not be bothered in the least. Kudos to the Israeli government for being so accommodating to Hamas, and to the Shalit family as well for having been such a news-dominating presence. This has made all the major wire services and news organizations throughout the world. The eyes of the world are on Hamas, and those eyes are not smiling. There is nothing quite as enjoyable as giving a brutal terrorist organization enough rope .... and watching them hang themselves. It's a good thing I'm not a conspiracy buff. I might read something into all this that I shouldn't .....

They'll get the point eventually

you remind me of the stupid Sarah Palin. :)

But you know me.

Gilad Shalit IS alive. Hamas has proven that several times when they released the audio tape that had HIS voice. and the three letters that Shalit wrote in HIS handwriting. When Shalit is freed ALIVE, you'll owe me an apology.

The terms incompetent, political mal-practioner, misfeacence specialist, corrupt-o-crat, and overt blatant dunce cum dolt/dullard is encapsulated in a single word-term which will forever be enshrined in Jewish History: Olmertian. One (a politician) who represnts all of the worst things that may be expected from a polititurd for the classic reasons of ineptitude basted with a personal desire for enrichment at others expense and a giant ego bordering in mental disturbance. And Shalit rots for want of a competent leader, who actually led.

Mark, it is my fervent hope and prayer that I will be required to offer an apology. And I promise to do so should Mr. Shalit be returned alive. But I do wish to point out to you that (a) a tape can be made at any time; and (b) letters can be post-dated. With a gun held to his head, Mr. Shalit would have made the tape and written any letter. Which does not preclude the possibility that he made the tape and wrote those letters the day he was kidnapped. We just don't know; we can't know. And anything Hamas claims can be pretty much discounted out-of-hand. I reiterate: nothing would be more gratifying to me than apologizing to you, Mark. I just don't think there will be a need.

Crush them meter by meter, women children, hospitals, schools, it doesn't matter. Eventually they will cry out for us to stop, and give us anything we want. We get Shalit they get peace. Anything else is genocide at their own hands. We are simply the implementaters of their own will.

Wipe the land clean and start over. If they hand back Gilad we stop. Their own fate will be in their own hands. I don't think the UN has enough spine to do much and yes the PA authority will cry out, but this is silliness and it needs to stop. Gilad needs to be home period.

the entire conversation misses the wider point---that Israel's perpetual abdication of its sovereign rights to murderers through these "negotiations" results in perpetual attacks on our Land and our People! The military actions in both Lebanon and [G]Aza were supposedly to free our captured soldiers, but one actions resulted in both the further empowerment of hizbollah as well as the trading of terrrorists for Jewish corpses, while the other (which was preceded by the apartheid policy of uprooting Jews from communities including Gush Katif) has ended in a supposed stalemate, with Israel begging the enemy to trade our brother for hundreds of murderers! Let the army scorch the earth 20 square km a day until Gilad is released! Let our enemies fear us and they will not dare to commit their atrocities!

As much as I despise Olmert the politician, he did the right thing for the State of Israel, what he was elected to do. He is not the PM of the Shalit family, but of all Israeli families.

Enough of Hamas demands - we cannot release all of these slaughterers no matter how much we want Gilad back with his family and we cry tears over his imprisonment without any respect for the Geneva Convention. We do not know if he is alive or dead, what his conditions are, what his health is like.... because the world accepts that Hamas need not comply with the simplest of laws.

Everybody in their right mind should look at the list of prisoners and what they did..... Then question if releasing them for 1 Israeli soldier is worth the many more these terrorists would most likely kill. Israel's security before Shalit families emotion.

And if God forbid, Shalit turns out to be dead, I will also apologize. That, I promise. But until Israel says otherwise, I consider Shalit to be alive. Hezbollah held Elhanan Tannenbaum alive for three years and no proof of life was ever provided yet he returned ALIVE. Hezbollah could have killed him at anytime but they didn't. I don't think Hamas has any intention of killing Shalit. Releasing him alive would make them look good. There's no point in killing him after all this time. We'll see what happens. I still believe there will be a prisoner swap eventually.