Israel/Hezbollah prisoner swap 1 for 400!?

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I have a question for anyone that knows more about this situation. Were those three dead Israeli soldiers presumed to be alive up until a short time ago? If so, then shouldn't Israel be allowed to execute 300 of the prisoners they were going to free?

 

Personally, I still don't understand why Israel did what they did. That must be one hell of a businessman they freed...

 

BEIRUT, Lebanon Jan. 29 — A long-awaited prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah on Thursday freed more than 420 Palestinians and other Arabs, two Lebanese militia leaders and an Israeli businessman.

 

Tens of thousands of Hezbollah supporters lined an airport road in Beirut, waving flags to welcome home the former prisoners including Shiite cleric Abdel Karim Obeid and Lebanese guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani.

 

Obeid was the first to disembark the plane. Sporting a long beard and white Shiite Muslim turban, he walked steadily toward a group of government officials. Dirani followed him.

 

Minutes earlier, an Israeli jet landed in Tel Aviv bringing home businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three soldiers killed on the Israeli-Lebanese border.

 

The complex swap carried out in two stages in Germany and in the Palestinian territories went ahead despite a suicide bombing earlier Thursday on a bus in Jerusalem that killed 10 bystanders.

 

In the first stage, Israel released more than 400 Palestinian prisoners to jubilant relatives in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The crowd cheered and praised Hezbollah, Israeli's arch enemy and listed by the United States as a terror group.

 

In the second stage, Israel brought 28 Arabs and a German national and Hezbollah brought the businessman and soldiers' coffins to an airport in Cologne, Germany. After the swap, planes bound for Tel Aviv and Beirut took off at almost the same time.

 

Israel also turned over the remains of 60 Lebanese militants as part of the deal. An Israeli military truck took the bodies to Israel's northern border with Lebanon. Israeli soldiers placed the wooden coffins into a Red Cross truck, which rumbled off through a border crossing.

 

At a mass rally Hezbollah staged to welcome home the freed prisoners, the group's leader warned it would kidnap more Israelis to use as bargaining chips if necessary to secure the release of Lebanese prisoners.

 

Turning to a huge poster of a guerrilla ambush in which three Israeli soldiers were captured in October 2000, Nasrallah declared: "This is a choice."

 

He told the rally it was "foolish" for the Israeli government not to have released Samir Kantar, the Lebanese citizen held the longest in Israel. "Because they didn't do that, I assure you that they will regret it in the future."

 

He went on to say that Hezbollah guerrillas were heavy-handed when they took the three Israeli soldiers dead. "I pledge to you that, next time, they will bring them alive," he said.

 

In Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned Hezbollah against kidnapping, speaking at a memorial service for the slain soldiers.

 

"Israel will not allow any enemy or terror group to turn kidnapping and ransom into a system. There are means we have not yet used. If, heaven forbid, the circumstances are changed, we will not hesitate to use them."

 

He did not elaborate on the means.

 

The soldiers were captured in October 2000 after Hezbollah guerrillas set off a bomb next to their jeep on the Israel-Lebanon border. Examinations of the bodies determined that they died shortly after the attack.

 

That same month, Hezbollah managed to kidnap Tannenbaum as he visited an Arab state. As Tannenbaum was the only Israeli known to be alive in Hezbollah's custody, he became a major chip in the protracted negotiations for Thursday's exchange. He returned to Israel on the same plane as the soldiers' coffins.

 

Once home, Tannenbaum, a colonel in the military reserves, faces interrogation by police and security services after allegations that he was involved in shady business dealings that led to his capture in October 2000.

 

Israel, too, has taken prisoners to use as bargaining chips: It kidnapped the Lebanese guerrilla leaders Obeid and Dirani in 1989 and 1994 respectively as leverage for the release of Ron Arad, an Israeli airman shot down over Lebanon in 1986.

 

Israel claims Dirani held Arad in the first months after his capture, at one point transported the airman in the trunk of his car and eventually handed him over to Iranian-backed Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon.

 

With the completed swap, the sides are to launch a second stage of negotiations, with Israel to receive concrete information on Arad within three months. In exchange, Israel would release Kantar, the Lebanese militant in an Israeli prison since 1979 for killing three Israelis.

 

Associated Press reporters David McHugh in Cologne, Germany and Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Tel Aviv also contributed to this story.

[Styles 0]

It's incredibily unfair, rewards bad behavior, creates more heroes and martyrs and only further jeapordizes Israel's citizens further.

 

/progressive ignoramous

 

Oh my god, come on Israel are a powerful terrorist nation funded by the US, those 300 innoncent prisoners were being held and probably tortured for no reason other than bullying or trying to get some running water. It's a miracle that The Soveirgn State Of Palestine even was able to capture one Israeli soldier since he probably had a gun and they have nothing but rocks. Maybe if Israel would stop taking their land and shooting their children, The Nation Of Palestine would have something worth living for and we can have peace.

/progressive ignoramous

 

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Kinda wish Israel strapped a few bombs to the vehicles these people were being driven in -- It'd make 'em feel right at home...

[Vern Gagne 0]

It sets a bad precedent but Isreal didn't want the bodies being paraded around the streets. An expert on Isreal said, the country has a great love for the military, and they wanted the bodies returned.