Israel's Choice

I don't think I'm sufficiently grumpy today. I'm actually grappling with something that came out of the mouth of Eli Yishai the puppet leader of Shas a sephardic ultra orthodox party in Israel. He thinks we should release Jews from prison serving time for murdering Arabs for nationalist reasons. These pardons should coincide with the 60th anniversary celebration of the State of Israel.

What was he thinking? He thinks that if we release Palestinian prisoners then why not Israeli prisoners? Up to this point we aren't releasing anyone with "blood on their hands." What I am curious about is who are the Palestinian prisoners with clean hands. If you shoot at Israelis your hands are bloody. If you build the bomb you have blood on your hands. The one giving the order has red hands too. Is the transporter clean? How about the human resource guy who recruits the bombers? Are they bloodless? We seem to have an awful lot of disposable unbloodied guys that we can toss back to Abbas whenever someone feels the need. I for one want to know what constitutes clean hands. I think the public should know who is in jail and why. Maybe then we could feel better about tossing them back to Abbas and it might save some money. Housing criminals is not cheap.

Now that I have gone way off into left field lets bring this puppy back front and center. If we reach a point that we release prisoners with blood on their hands should we in turn do the same for our guys? Its not a notion my gut is fond of. How can we release a murderer who might be seen as a hero among some segments of society? How do we accept people who took the law into their own hands? I don't want to live in that kind of society. What these people did was the very thing we are fighting against. Thankfully the number is small. It gives me hope that we will not become like them, the Palestinians. The Palestinian murderers will be heroes. The only way they will not be heroes is if the PA jails people for acts of terrorism. In the mean time Palestinians support terrorism. So is it fair to let their murderers go and not ours? Does letting their murderers go signal that they were legitimate?

I think the best answer is a simple one. People convicted of murder should have to serve their complete sentences. If not then we become morally bankrupt and we in turn bankrupt the Palestinians by letting them continue in a society that has no consequences for horrible acts. Everyone must pay the price equally.

Submitted by Carol