Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong

guardian.co.uk ^ | 8/7/06 | George Monbiot

[epow]

It seems clear that if Israel had handed over the prisoners, it would - without the spillage of any more blood - have retrieved its men and reduced the likelihood of further kidnappings.

It may seem clear to the surrender monkey writer, but he's a fool if it does.

What IS clear is that if Israel had negotiated a prisoner exchange it would have only meant that Hezballah and HAMAS would have then kidnapped more Israelis and negotiated another prisoner swap, and then they would have kidnapped more Israelis and negotiated another swap, and then kidnapped more..........and on and on ad infinitum.

The proper response to terrorist kidnapping and extortion is to assume that the hostages are either already dead or will be killed no matter what concessions are made, and go ahead with an overwhelming, crushing attack on the terrorists to demonstrate what will happen each and every time they try that game. That course of action is awfully hard on the kidnapping victims, but it may well prevent many more victims being taken and probably killed.

[Jameison]

George Monbiot = George MOONBAT

[Pikachu_Dad]

Ah, he seems upset that Israels army was doing its job making contingency plans for an invasion.

[propertius]

Monbiot seems to have done very little research here. Hizbollah was not interested in the release of 15 prisoners taken in Lebanese territory and held in breach of the Geneva Conventions it was interested only in winning the freedom of three Lebanese, primarily Samir Kuntar.

Kuntar killed an Israeli family in Nahariya, crushing the skull of a four year old girl between the butt of his rifle and a rock.

Somehow, Mr Monbiot seems unaware that no Geneva Convention can come to the aid of the appropriately named Kuntar.

The only valid point that Monbiot makes -- and then only accidentally -- is that Hizbollah's capture of the two Israeli soldiers was not unprecedented. It was unfortunate that previous Israeli governments agreed to a German-brokered prisoner swap in the past to appease domestic opinion.

Nasrallah declared his 2005/2006 main objective to be the release of Kuntar and his chaps and tried to seize Israeli soldiers on 11 occasions. Those attempts all took place in the Shebaa farms and failed.