Yes, do what can be done to release the captured soldier Gilad Shalit – if he is still alive. It is quite possible he is not. Israeli prisoners of war do not have a high rate of survival in the hands of their captors. However we must be niggardly when it come to satisfying requests to release captured terrorists. Time and time again we have seen that Muslim terrorists released from Israeli jails as a concession to the PLO return to their "work" upon release.

The reader should temper his optimism about what can be accomplished by negotiations with Hamas, an organization that committed itself orally and in writing to the destruction of the nation of Israel and to the waging of war against all Jews. Hard to believe? The claim of a right-wing fanatic? You can read Hamas' charter for yourself, a statement of its guiding principles, at any number of websites, such as this one: "http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html".

Here are some salient quotes from Hamas' statement of principles and policies:

Hamas' motto: Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief.

Hamas' view of "the land of Palestine", which includes Israel and Jordan:

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf (a trust or endowment) throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. No Arab country nor the aggregate of all Arab countries, and no Arab King or President nor all of them in the aggregate, have that right, nor has that right any organization or the aggregate of all organizations, be they Palestinian or Arab, because Palestine is an Islamic Waqf throughout all generations and to the Day of Resurrection.

Hamas' policy towards non-Muslims:

Hamas is one of the links in the Chain of Jihad in the confrontation with the Zionist invasion. It links up with the setting out of the Martyr Izz a-din al-Qassam and his brothers in the Muslim Brotherhood who fought the Holy War in 1936; it further relates to another link of the Palestinian Jihad and the Jihad and efforts of the Muslim Brothers during the 1948 War, and to the Jihad operations of the Muslim Brothers in 1968 and thereafter. But even if the links have become distant from each other, and even if the obstacles erected by those who revolve in the Zionist orbit, aiming at obstructing the road before the Jihad fighters, have rendered the pursuance of Jihad impossible; nevertheless, the Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!

Thanks for the propoganda, but you failed to mention that Israel incubated and bankrolled Hamas.

Gives whole new meaning to the term "self-hating Jew", doesn't it?

Technically, one to five well designed airbursts of enhanced radiation weapons would come a long way to solve this problem, but perhaps there are sentimental reasons to adopt a more gradual Loesung. In the old days one would go to war to defeat an ennemy. Apparently now it is OK to just sit by and let the bad guys shoot at you. You must be kidding..I thought that at least Israel had the guts to act in its own interests

Sounds like a Harry Potter book, but its as serious as cancer.

David, I have no love for Islam. The historical Mohamed is what I would consider to be a lunatic and a pedophile. I have no love for those who claim to be followers of Jesus, a religion which is an incoherent portmanteau of paganism, Mithraism and Semetic religions whose modern day followers couldn't have strayed further from the "red letters" if they tried.

I admire Islamic, Christian and Jewish reformers who at least try to bend their dogma to the realities of modern life. But I find all of them to have the same flaw: each one is based on an unprovable premise of the existence and sentience of God.

I have no love for the murderers of the Canaanites, if that actually happened. I do not believe that any deity has granted the sons of Abraham claim to any parcel of land.

I do not believe that your statistics about the intelligence of Arabs is anything other than juked and slanted, just as the claims of racial intelligence were slanted at the turn of the 20th century and used by Eugenicists to codify racism into our institutions.

Access to education, poverty and oppression effect the outcome of these test. To say that Arabs are idiot cockroaches is no less racist than if I were to claim that inner city blacks were inferior.

But getting back to the false dichotomy. You say, well, "we must have a means of evaluating who is worth more and who is worth less."

Why?

Because it is "us versus them."

Who would you rather die, yourself, a fellow Jew, or a dirty, fecund Arab? Well, the cockroach Arab, of course!

But why this dichotomy? Isn't there another choice, somewhere in the middle of "us versus them?" Shouldn't that be left as the "route of last resort?" To you, it seems not. Shoot first, ask questions later.

Here's my point: choose to start de-escalating, or eventually someone more powerful than Israel and AIPAC will come along and MAKE YOU CHILDREN BEHAVE.

who is the protagonist in your last paragraph? you never named Him.
you think IQ is racist; Ok i think basketball is racist.
unfortunately i had to use the abilities of "inner city blacks" because they are athletic and creative. Arabs, as far as the world can see, *have* no abilities - no nobel prizes, no art, no music, no literature, they aren't even good looking. But that's what happens when darwinian fitness is measured only by fecundity, all costs being covered via oil and charity.