Learning a lesson from past disasters, Israel has boldly asserted that they will not negotiate with terrorists to recover the bodies of six fallen IDF soldiers in Gaza City currently being held by terrorists:
Israeli officials have ruled out political any negotiations and have vowed that troops will remain in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighborhood and until the remains of six Givati soldiers are recovered.
“They will stay there as long as necessary to bring back the bodies for burial here in Israel,” Gideon Meir, deputy director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry told the Washington Post, calling it “part of the whole Jewish tradition” to preserve and protect a body for interment.
Despite the Israeli position, an agreement has been reached between Egyptian officials and Palestinians holding body parts of six IDF soldiers killed in Tuesday’s explosion of an armored personnel carrier in the Zeitun neighborhood in Gaza, according to Palestinian sources quoted by Army Radio Wednesday afternoon.
The same Egyptian officials who, presumably, have a peace treaty with Israel. Real nice.
The international community is putting a lot of pressure on the PA to return the bodies of the soldiers. But Palestinian Authority instructions to do the same are nonsense. Meryl thinks that Arafat is missing a golden PR opportunity. I disagree. I think Arafat calculated long ago that the value of the PR he’ll get from the Arab world for bodies of dead Jewish soldiers far outweighs the PR he’ll get in the Western press for, well, anything.
I think it is obvious why these series of attacks occured. The Arabs need to feel pain when they mis-behave. If it means fire-bombing Gaza “City”, the same way the British and the Americans fire-bombed Dresden, then so be it.
The Arabs must learn once and for all that their actions have consequences.
It is impossible to bomb Gaza city because Israel still has not decided that this is a war. Olmert, the vice-premier and Likud traitor, says that it is okay to keep this a low intensity conflict. The Americans themselves (if you haven’t already realized this) are quite content to keep this conflict on a low simmer to keep us in check.
IMO, there are still too many Israelis and Jews who feel more mercy for the Palestinian Arabs rather than for the Israelis who are dying like sheep.
If anyone is still undecided about ‘retreating’ from Gush Katif, then notice the Lebanon precedent. Anytime, Hezbollah attacks the north, we don’t respond because ‘Lebanon’ is not attacking us. After the Gaza retreat, we still won’t respond to fire from Gaza since it will be claimed that Hamas is firing, not the PA.
Sari, go re-read that article.