Israel’s deadly mistakes

Jeff Jacoby
Boston Globe
20 December 09

IN 1983, ISRAELI authorities arrested Ahmed Yassin, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza. He was convicted of unlawfully stockpiling weapons and establishing paramilitary jihadist organizations, and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Just two years later, however, he was set free in the now-infamous “Jibril deal’’ - the release of 1,150 security prisoners held by Israel in exchange for three Israeli soldiers held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist group headed by Ahmed Jibril. Yassin soon launched Hamas, a murderous organization committed to Israel’s liquidation. Over the years, Hamas terrorists have killed hundreds of Israelis, and maimed or wounded thousands more.

Few Israeli policies have been as counterproductive or morally questionable as the lopsided prisoner exchanges it has entered into with terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. Time and again, Israel has paid for the freedom of a few POWs - sometimes just the remains of a few POWs - by releasing hundreds of violent detainees, many of them complicit in the deaths of civilians. And time and again, the newly freed terrorists have picked up where they left off.

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