Gilad Shalit

I think I finally figured out the best shock therapy for low self-esteem. I would call it The Israeli Prisoners Exchange Method. All you have to do is count how many potential "martyrs" Israel is ready to exchange to get you back home! one thousand? one thousand and one? one thousand and twenty? one thousand and twenty seven! I think Gilad Shalit will never have to lie all alone in the dark again and feel the existential throb many of us sometimes feel in the dead of night "nobody loves me..." The Hamas Inc. can cry victory until hell freezes over, but I don't buy it. You can say that the rules of the game have been stretched too far, you can say that the Israeli government messed up, showed weakness, opened another Pandora's box full of bloodthirsty wanna be martyrs, surrendered to the Hamas, should never have released so many prisoners for one Israeli soldier, whatever, but I don't buy it. Because no matter how much the Hamas Inc. brags about victory, there is one thing it can't deny: That one Israeli kid is worth more than a thousand of them! Since the Middle East is built on the honor system, do not delude yourselves that this fact has gone unnoticed by those who adhere to the honor system. This is one sneaky tiny teeny unspoken fact no one on the other side wants to admit. But at night, when darkness falls, when the noise and the gun brandishing and the posturing dissolve into oblivion, the wanna be martyr will have to accept the fact that not only Allah remained indifferent to his/her sacrifice, even the Israelis no longer give a damn about it. Because there is someone much more important in the world than the death wish of the wanna be martyred hero and his ilk. Gilad Shalit is no hero. But those who fought for his release are.