It is not really clear — at least not to me — what Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is up to.
Yesterday, at a meeting he convened of Israel’s “security cabinet”, he got agreement to put at the top of the Israeli government’s priorities the release of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized in a cross-border raid in June 2006 and is believed to be held, still, somewhere in Gaza.
Hamas has said over and over again that Shalit will be released only if Israel frees many of those on a list of about 1400 Palestinian prisoners Hamas has specified. It was recently reported (just around the time of the cease-fires after the recent 22-day IDF military operation in Gaza), that Israel might be ready to free about 1000 Palestinians — the most generous offer to date.
But, Hamas has always insisted not just on quantity, but on its own specifically-named choices.
On Wednesday, Olmert apparently blithely ignored this fact — and got the security cabinet to approve his own list.
Continue reading Israel has no intention of entering into a formal cease-fire agreement with Hamas