In a war you cannot pull your punches for fear of what an enemy will do to your captured soldiers. That makes the captived soldiers hostages. That gives your enemy veto power over your strategy and tactics. Captured soldiers just have to take their chances. If Israel was allowing its hands to be tied for fear of Hamas doing something to harm Shalit it was putting peripheral considerations ahead of vital ones.

That may sound harsh and callous, even cruel, but that is the nature of war. And when a babarous enemy attacks Israel, as she has been continuously attacked for so long, Israel must defend herself with a ferocity that will put the fear of the Lord of Hosts into her enemies. Israel has no choice but to wage war when attacked, no matter what her dim-witted and pig-ignorant critics may say. The alternative is “The Return of the Shoah,” coming soon to a continent near you.

Russ makes a good point. Personally I suspect poor Shalit has been dead for some time, perhaps a year or more. The Hamas swine will never hand over anybody, but in such a case Israel ought to take out some Hamas Higher-ups, just to make them realize that Israel can play by their rules. “They put one of ours in the morgue, we put six of theirs.”

But as long as Israel is willing to trade hundreds of terrorist prisoners for a couple of Jewish corpses outfits like Hamas will expect to get whatever they want in return for such corpses. They have no incentive to keep their prisoners alive for return. A dead one will do just as well.