http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&ncl=dW7axhZi1Fa5nqM1H4aS0MG5ABpsM&topic=hIf this happens and Israel gets Gilad Shalit back alive, it will (AFAICT) be the first time we've gotten a captured soldier back alive (see the Wikipedia article on
Israeli Prisoner Exchanges). Two of my personal friends from my time in the IDF, Adi Avitan and Beni Avraham, were returned in coffins.
The cost of getting Gilad back, however, is high. 1027 Palestinian prisoners, many with blood on their hands, for a single soldier. Is 1:1027 the ratio between the value Israel puts on a life vs the value the Palestinians put on a life? Maybe, maybe not. My concern is about the precedent this sets. While I'm overjoyed for Gilad and his family (and after 5 years in captivity, there's a saying here that "We are all the Shalit family"), this in many ways reminds me of negotiating with terrorists, capitulating to terrorism... rewarding it even.
As painful as it would have been, I personally think that we never should have agreed to more than a 1:1 ratio in prisoner exchanges - not just this time, but from the very beginning. It would have been very, very rough for that/those first prisoner's family/families, but it would have prevented this ridiculous situation we find ourselves in now.
What do you guys think? If your nation's armed forces was at a constant low-level warfare with neighboring forces, and one of your soldiers had been kidnapped, is returning that soldier worth any price?
