August 28, 2011 was Gilad Shalit's 25th birthday - his sixth birthday in Hamas captivity.
June 25, 2011 marked the fifth anniversary of the abduction of Gilad Shalit by Hamas terrorists from within Israeli territory, near the Kerem Shalom crossing.
On June 25, 2006, then-Corporal Gilad Shalit (later promoted to Staff Sergeant) was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from within Israeli territory and taken to the Gaza Strip. The kidnapping was part of an unprovoked attack which involved seven armed terrorists using a tunnel dug under the Israel-Gaza border. Gilad was 19 at the time of his abduction.
Among those 1,027 Palestinian and Israeli Arab (or perhaps Arabic-Israeli) prisoners released by Israel for one one individual was Yahya Sinwar, who
had spent over 22 years in Israeli prisons from 1988 to 2011, a period that reportedly hardened his radical views. According to experts, his time in solitary confinement and his interactions with other prisoners further solidified his leadership within Hamas.
Israeli authorities described him as "cruel, authoritative, influential," with significant endurance, manipulative tendencies, and the ability to rally crowds. Sinwar's ability to maintain authority inside prison, including negotiating with prison authorities and enforcing discipline among inmates, helped solidify his position as a key Hamas leader.
Following his release, Sinwar called for more kidnappings of Israeli soldiers....
He went far beyond that. When Sinwar was killed by the IDF in a raid last October, Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank stated "The death of Sinwar for Israel is the equivalent to the death of Osama Bin Laden to the United States. He is the mastermnd of the worst terrorist attack the nation has ever suffered- more broadly, the worst attack suffered by Jews in any one day since the Holocaust."
Levitt understated the enormity of the attack. Eight days after the slaughter, the Executive Director of the same institute wrote
By latest count, the attacks by Hamas—the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement—killed more than 1,300 Israelis and third-country nationals, including at least 29 Americans, in a country whose population is less than 10 million. In America, that would be equivalent to killing nearly 40,000—13 times more than the number of Al Qaeda victims on 9/11....
As terrible as 9/11 was, tens of millions of Americans woke up the following morning in our vast country not knowing any of the victims or their families. In Israel, a country whose width is less than the daily commute of many Americans, not a single family was untouched by the attack, either directly, through a neighbor, friend or classmate.
The permanent elimination of bin Laden took place a decade after 9/11/01, almost three years after the USA gave control of the Green Zone (home to coalition headquarters) to the Iraqui government, and a month before Congress formally ended its authorization for the war. By Sinwar was killed only twelve months after the terrorist attack upon Israel and while the war against Hamas was still raging.
That hostage/prisoner swap of 2011 cost Israel dearly, beyond even what was obvious with a ration of 1:1,027. And yet then-President Biden crowed "The elements of this deal were what I laid out in detail this past May, which was embraced by countries around the world and endorsed overwhelmingly by the U.N. Security Council." Trump boasted (emphasis and erratic punctuation his, of course) "This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies."
This episode should bring to mind the idiom "be careful what you wish for." Among the prisoners to be released by the Netanyahu government, there could be another Yahya Sinwar, or other repercussions.. As John Bolton realizes, the consequences of the Hamas-Israel/hostage-prisoner agreement will in all likelihood not be what both now-former President Biden and President Trump envision.
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