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DEBKAfile military sources report that Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barak has bowed to Hamas’ insistence on assigning the negotiations for the release of Gilead Shalit, kidnapped two years ago, to “stage two” of the Egyptian-brokered truce accord. In other words, it has been left out of the deal.He also agrees in principle to swap most of the 450 jailed Palestinian terrorists demanded by Hamas, including scores of men “with blood on their hands.” There are still reservations about a small number.The defense ministry’s political adviser Amos Gilead carried this message to Cairo on his unscheduled trip Tuesday night, June 17, after Hamas and Egypt announced a truce would go into effect in Gaza early Thursday. Barak said Tuesday night, that following the truce Israel will face tough decisions about releasing hard-core Palestinians as the price for recovering the Israeli soldier. Hamas’ Damascus-based political leader Khaled Meshaal responded Wednesday by emphasizing that every single jailed Palestinian on his organization’s list must be handed over without exception.Military sources in Israel’s Southern Command view the informal truce accord mediated by Egypt as total capitulation by Israel to all Hamas’ demands for no return, in terms of a commitment to release Gilead Shalit, a halt to weapons smuggling or a limit on Hamas’ burgeoning military strength.Israel has agreed to reopen the Gaza crossings into Israel and Egyptian Sinai, thereby breaching the international boycott of the terrorist-ruled Gaza Strip.Israeli government spokesmen are misrepresenting the deal as a major triumph when in fact it is the Palestinian Islamist terrorists’ biggest achievement on the road to international legitimacy.Some officers compare this capitulation to Ehud Barak’s policy in 2000, when as prime minister he ordered the Israeli military to evacuate the defense zone it had established in South Lebanon. This retreat encouraged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to launch his uprising against Israel later that same year and resulted in six years of military passivity in the North, as Hizballah built up its militia undisturbed and stockpiled the rockets for the war it launched against Israel in 2006.The defense minister has fallen back into the same disastrous pattern in the Gaza Strip today.As in the days of Noah...
