Meet Ayman al-Sharawneh, released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal. And now...

...It is not the first time that a terrorist released from an Israeli jail has gone back to terrorism. According to the Israel Security Agency (ISA), released terrorists (including those released in the Gilad Shalit swap) are frequently involved in terrorist activity and recruitment of operatives for terrorist attacks.

Meir Amit ITIC..
11 June '13..

Overview

1. Ayman al-Sharawneh is a Hamas operative from the Hebron region who was sentenced to 38 years in Israeli prison for several terrorist attacks, such as an IED bombing in Beersheba which injured 19 people. He was released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal and redetained after having gone back to terrorist activity. He was on a hunger strike for 53 days, during which time there were demonstrations for his release in the West Bank as part of the “prisoners’ protest”. Eventually he was allowed to go to the Gaza Strip for ten years instead of coming back to jail and serving his sentence (March 2013). In a recent interview to a Lebanese TV channel, he said that he went back to military activity in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military-terrorist wing.

2. Ayman al-Sharawneh’s return to terrorism reflects a broader trend of terrorists released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal going back to the circle of terrorism. This past year the Israeli security forces have exposed a number of networks in Judea and Samaria some of whose members are terrorists released in the Shalit deal, as well as networks handled by released terrorists from the Gaza Strip and from Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Qatar. Many of those terrorists and their handlers belong to Hamas (see Appendix for details).

3. The released terrorists’ re-involvement in terrorism is a blatant violation of the Egyptian-brokered release agreement.

Al-Sharawneh’s return to military activity

4. Ahmed Shaldan, the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV’s reporter in Gaza City, has recently produced a story about the released terrorist Ayman al-Sharawneh going back to terrorist activity in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing. The reporter interviewed Al-Sharawneh in his Gaza home and accompanied him on military activity in the east of the Gaza Strip, near the border with Israel. According to the reporter, every Thursday night Al-Sharawneh puts on his uniform, takes his weapon, and goes out on a night operational activity. The report went on to say that Al-Sharawneh was unaffected by the many years he had spent in Israeli jail, and that he still considered taking part in jihad a necessity. Al-Sharawneh said that the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades exist to protect their land and liberate the West Bank, Temple Mount, “all of Palestine from the river to the sea”, and the Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel (Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV, May 27, 2013).

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We, bereaved families, must remind Israelis what releasing prisoners entails

Arnold/Frimet Roth
This Ongoing War: A Blog
09 August '10

One of this blog's authors has an op-ed in today's Jerusalem Post. Its publication marks the ninth anniversary of the savage massacre on 9th August 2001 by Hamas agents in the center of Jerusalem at the Sbarro restaurant. Our daughter Malki was one of the people murdered there that day. We are determined that her memory will not be erased.

Nine years after the Sbarro massacre
By FRIMET ROTH
A version of this article was first published in the Jerusalem Post (online 9-Aug-10; print edition 10-Aug-10)

We, the bereaved families who feel the pain of terror every day must remind Israelis what 'releasing prisoners' for Gilad Schalit entails.

It's been nine years since my daughter Malki was murdered in the suicide bombing of Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant and terrorism denial is still rampant.

Foreign diplomats may still preface their complaints against Israel with the formulaic "Israel has some genuine security concerns and they have to be met." But after that obligatory line, most feel free to attack Israel with no holds barred.

Some of Israel's home-grown critics don't even bother with such political correctness. Our security is no longer a justified concern in their view and they have no compunction about saying so. Suicide bombers? Intifada? Israeli terror victims? Not in their history books.

Writing recently in Haaretz, columnist Merav Michaeli described a variety of possible solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her conclusion? It is incumbent upon us to "want to live in peace. Not in security, but in peace." Her column was even entitled "Not in Security, but Peace" in case the message was not clear enough.

Terrorism denial is the foundation on which the Free Gilad Schalit campaign has been built. At some point, its legitimate effort to pressure all involved parties to free Schalit was hijacked. Today its goal is nothing short of maligning and undermining Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for his unwillingness to release every last prisoner demanded by Hamas.

This campaign could not have galvanized so many - some estimate 200,000 joined its eleven-day march to Jerusalem last month - without the groundwork laid by terrorism denial. Were the faces of the 1,000 innocent Israelis murdered during the second intifada still fresh in Israelis' minds, warnings about the dangers of a mass prisoner release would not be dismissed as casually and as persistently as they are being now.

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Kitsch can kill

Sarah Honig
Another Tack
30 July '10

In his 1984 book The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Czech author Milan Kundera philosophized that “kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession.

The first tear says: ‘How nice to see children running on the grass!’ The second tear says: ‘How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!’ It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.”

Transported to today’s Israel, the one transfixed by the Schalit family’s pressure-mobilization extravaganza, Kundera’s definition may be paraphrased as ”how nice to be moved by the Schalits’ plight.”

The second variation would be: “How nice to be moved together with all our other trendy compatriots by the Schalits’ plight.”

A measure of the syrupy kitsch may be sampled from crooner Aviv Geffen’s Ma’ariv op-ed. Calling Hamas hostage Gilad Schalit a “butterfly of wars,” Geffen addresses Binyamin Netanyahu: “What fun it is that Avner is beside you.”

School-aged Avner is the younger Netanyahu son. Geffen omits to mention that Avner’s older brother, Ya’ir, is in active IDF service, something Aviv himself assiduously avoided. He threatened to commit suicide if drafted, crows about it and avidly promotes dodging.

Far-left icon Aviv endorses whatever weakens Israel. Thus this Dayan-clan scion asks: “What if Avner, not Gilad, were the bargaining chip?” Geffen avoids mentioning quite whose “bargaining chip” Gilad is, as if Netanyahu holds Gilad captive.

Aviv proclaims that “it’s owed us to sit some hot afternoon, see Gilad return and shed the heavy tear stuck in our eyes for four years.” Kundera’s kitschy tear is lightweight in comparison to Aviv’s, who preaches that “there’s no price for one living soul, for one worrying mother.”

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