Shalit wasn't kidnapped

Marilyn from Australia claims "He was on duty in his tank ready to murder any Palestinian who dared to walk in their own land." Let's remind everybody that Marilyn is an illegal occupier on Aboriginal Australia, and she and her settler friends have a dismal record of genocide against the rightful people whose land she occupies. Next, Gilad Shalit was in Israel, his land, and no, the Palestinians do not have a right to walk across the border without going through a proper border crossing. Israel is a legal, recognized nation by international law. I remind Marilyn that Palestine is not. In fact, in the past 2000 years there's has not been a nation called "Palestine". However, there was a nation called Israel, which was occupied and its citizens turned into refugees. We have returned, claimed our homeland, and are even ready to hand part of it over to the squatting Palestinians. Well, we might, if they ever get their act together, stop killing each other, and sign a peace treaty.

Mr. Avnery, your position is untenable. If Gilad Shalit is a POW, then whoever is holding him is guilty of violating the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of POWs. The Hamas demand for hundreds of prisoners gives the lie to the claim of his being a POW. There are international conventions for the trading of POWs: One soldier of equal rank or a finite number of soldiers of lesser rank. It works this way: A corporal may be exchanged for a corporal or for five privates; a sergeant may be exchanged for a sergeant or for ten privates, and so on. The moment the party holding the prisoner strays from this convention, demanding 1,000 of his personnel for one prisoner, that prisoner becomes a hostage, not a POW. The Geneva Conventions on the treatment of POWs guarantees regular visits by a neutral representative, regularly sending and receiving mail from his family through a neutral power and more. Hamas has met none of these conditions. He is a hostage, not a POW.

POW's are military men of one sovereign State's captured by military men of another sovereign State. The case Gilad Shalit, a member of the military of the sovereign State of Israel, captured by the non-state, nomadic tribal rabble, living in gaza is uncomparable. It's a case of comparing oranges with apples. Scientific rigour requires you compare oranges with oranges, NOT oranges with apples. The tribal arabs, the descendants of Ham and his son Canaan, both of whom were cursed by the father Noah, who are living in judea, samaria and gaza are stateless, with no national identity beyond their tribalism. They are non-state p[layers in the middle east. They do not play their war-like games by any of the traditional rules spelled out by the nations of the world after WWII. These non-state players do not engage in their terrorist activities by "gentlemen's rules". In fact, no rules but their own shariah-invented rules apply. It can be described as assymetric warfare.

I agree completely with the first part of the argument. Gilad Shalit is a prisoner of war, and the state Had and Has an obligation to liberate him. However he is not treated as a prisoner of war. No red cross, no contact, nothimg. Also what kind of prisoner exchange is this. A thousand for One. Things are not as simple as you portray them. It seems to me that there should be One prisoner of War for One prisoner of War. Esther.

He was on duty in his tank ready to murder any Palestinian who dared to walk in their own land. He is not some innocent little boy, not like the hundreds of children who have been slaughtered by Israel over the last 62 years of illegal existence as a non state built on terrorism alone.

Shalit has to have been 'kidnapped' because Israel cannot accord any legitimacy to the cause of her adversaries. No legitimacy can be accorded because it's a slippery slope; to recognize the reality of the Palestinians -- let alone recognize their legitimacy -- immediately calls into question the legitimacy of Israel itself. One goes from 'a land without a people for a people without a land' to 'another people for a land that already has a people.' The moral problem is obvious -- and it leads directly to the need to label Shalit 'kidnapped' rather than 'taken prisoner.' Shalit was 'kidnapped' because Israel cannot afford to describe him as a prisoner of war.

Avery - what a pile of rubbish! I've seen your articles in Ma'an, and I don't believe that you really have Gilad Shalit's best interests in mind when you write these breezy, accusatory diatribes against Israel. The utter lack of consistency between your criticims of the "evil Israelis" and the pandering to the "little Palestinian victims" is nauseating. In a world of your making, there would only be peace though elimination of Israel.

The premise of this article is ridiculous. Gilad Shalit has been held for 3 YEARS without any Red Cross visitation. Plus, he was taken on Israeli soil---that is a kidnapping. You don't have POWs with non-state actors. Due to their own intransigence, the PA is not a state. And even if one wanted to grant the PA this right, the PA itself does not recognize the legitimacy of the Hamas goverment in Gaza. If a U.S. sailor in the Coast Guard was grabbed in U.S. territorial waters by a paramilitary sympathetic to the Venezuelan government, this would be a kidnapping---not a POW case. Same for Shalit. God bless him and bring him home soon.

"Hamas should agree to have Red Cross representatives visit him, perhaps with his family as well." Reminds me the TV cartoon series "Heidi" in an idillic Alpine village. Uri Avnery is desperate to consider Hamas a nation-state, and consider its "army" a regular one, not a bunch of Iranian-trained terrorists. What a loss of time.

The peace keepers from UN would be happy to know that they are pow.The journalists embedded In Afghanistan and Iraq are pow.Maybe Avnery think that Roxana Saberi was pow too,and what about Daniel Pearl?pow?.The passangers on the next hijacked plan would love to know that they are pow.Uri Geller can bend spoons,Uri Avnery can bend anything.

BRAVO Uri!!! Since the first day Shalit became a POW I have been saying the same thing. Whenever any Israeli mentions anything about Shalit it is important to respond that we are all waiting for the release of ALL prisinors of war. Both Shalit AND the other 10,000 plus that israel is holding.

Prisoners of war gets to meet the red-cross,did he?.Avnery doesn't live in HaOlam-Hazeh.

You are saying that Palestinians have a better Propaganda machine then you Israeli's, and they are winning the propaganda war? You are also saying that Palestinians might be better then Israeli's at something as important as lying? Are you sure you want to leave that message?? TATA

RC is obliged to visit POVs.There was no such visit to Shalit. Cry ,"kibbish"&Co ,cry me a river about pal civilians blowing up pizzerias full of children and allowed family visits and university education while in these "inhumane" Israeli prisons.

Avnery the Humaniterian"legitimize Gitmo. The detainees there are also prisoners of war,and there is no need for closure,and trials. They were not kidnapped.

Ofcourse he was not abducted - civilians are abducted, not military personnel in action. But then when has reality or fact stopped the hasbara (propoganda) machine? Who cares about Palestinian civilians (not the freedom fighters, the civilians) abducted by the IDF and imprisoned without a trial? Nopes, an Israeli POV must be focus of media sympathy and tears. After an Israeli life is worth far more than many Palestinian lives!!!

By Mr. Avnery's own definition of a demand of a ransom for a kidnapped victim, Shalit was kidnapped. The Arabs are demanding a ransom of 1,000 prisoners for Shalit's release. Uri, when are you coming back to visit us again at The Drew Methodist Church of Carmel, N.Y.?

Could Mr.Avnery think about these consequences and write another article about the further consequences of his semantics?

It is astounding the lies that the pro-Palestinian lobby is spreading throughout the world in their propaganda war against Israel. Take the talkback from "dani. a" as an example: "Of course Shalit is a prisoner and of course calling a soldier send to kill people in Gaza "a kidnapped" is a Jewish joke." The truth is that Shalit was at an IDF post in Israel that was attacked by Hamas who crossed the border and killed several soldiers before they abducted Shalit and took him back across the border. Shalit wasn't sent to kill anybody. It is a known fact that the Palestinians spread false stories to support their war against Israel. Dani. a's lies are just another part of it. Ha'aretz readers can google for themselves to find the facts about the attack in which Shalit was kidnapped. Hey dani. a - you should google it too so you don't look like such a propagandist.

i am glad to read this clarification. of course we should talk about the soldier as a prisoner of war and of course there must be an exchange of prisoners as soon as possible. too bad what the politicians are performing in this sad case. too many palestinians are suffering in the israeli prisons - far beyond 10000 people among them minors. and the daily over night arrests in the west bank are continuing in such places like bilin. i can confirm that the attitute in german newspapers toward israel is significantly changing and the cruel war against the people of gaza has opened many editors an new more realistic perspective on israel and its behavior.

Is good to see you on Haaretz.Of course Shalit is a prisoner and of course calling a soldier send to kill people in Gaza "a kidnapped" is a Jewish joke.About the media of "the free world"still is fine,wait until Haim Saban will buy Aljazeera.

If thoughtless acts of terrorism are to condemn someone to be undeserving of the status of human, that rule must apply to Israelis as well. Hence, Ariel Sharon following the Qibya massacre is undeserving of being called a human being.

Obviously the Palestinians have committed repeated acts of war by launching cross-border attacks against Israeli civilians. Avnery thus gives a left-wing blessing to the Cast Lead operation, since it was obviously a legitimate defensive measure taken by Israel against repeated acts of war by the Palestinians. So the difference is now that instead of swapping "terrorists" for Shalit, Avnery says we are swapping war criminals for Shalit. Avnery has no choice but to accept Goldstone's conclusion that Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians are war crimes. Thus, the Hamas prisoners are war criminals, not prisoners of war. Does Avnery want to send them all to Europe for trial?

If Shalit is a prisoner of war, then he must be treated as such: visits, contact, red cross, etc etc. Israel prisoners of war have prisoner conditions that any free person in Gaza would surely want at home. The author graciously jumps over all these. Left has become more rhightist than the right, more dogmatic. this is one of the secrets of the "death of the left". Stalinist without Stalin.

If Gilad is a prisoner of war he should be accorded all the rights, by Hamas. that go along with it - such as visits by the red cross. Until then he is a kidnapped soldier.

Shalit is a prisoner if war and of course should be set free, for humanitarian reasons. I do not keep count on the number of persons in Israeli prisons. But your sentence: "Aren't they counting the days, along with their parents and children?" says it all. "Palestinians" is used as an other word for terrorists. Making the suffering of the civilians defensible It is high time the Israeli start to see the Palestinians as individual persons and human beings. It should be no crime to live in Gaza or the West bank. It should be no crime to protect your own land, house and family.

This is a poorly thought out article. Even if Hamas prisoners are prisoners of war, they can still be terrorists as well, and the Israeli public is justified in worrying whether they will become threats to their security again. And again, even if they are prisoners of war, those who committed or planned the worst terrorist attacks don't deserve to be reckoned as human. I don't object to calling Shalit or other Palestinians prisoners of war. But that means the leftist author must concede, minimally, that Israel was in a state of war with the Gaza strip at the time he was kidnapped, that Hamas militants are soldiers like Shalit, and that therefore there is nothing illegal or immoral about the so called siege. Moreover, the last war in Gaza should be judged as a full-fledged war and not an operation in Israeli-controlled territory like the West Bank, in which case, Israel's use of force and the casualties they incurred were in line with comparable operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.