Comfort to soldiers

Submitted by Josh G (Israel), Oct 19, 2011 at 05:29

Joshua, you wrote "Every soldier should be comforted today with the knowledge that the Israelis will stop at nothing, no matter the price, to save his or her life." Equally important, if not more so, is the knowledge that the Israelis will stop at nothing to forcefully discourage kidnappings in the first place. And that points to the crux of mistake made by the Israeli government. Once they knew that Gilad had been abducted, Olmert should have issued a very harsh ultimatum to Hamas to return him safe and sound within 12 hours: or else suffer the full wrath of the IDF. The assault would have lasted until Gilad was returned safe and sound or until Hamas was obliterated. Collateral damage? Too bad. If I were a soldier, I would be more comforted by precedents like this.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".