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Israel: No Prisoner Exchange Now

As the Israeli-Arab conflict, specifically to do with Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, continues, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said this past week that he is interested in boosting Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, but can and will do very little until the Palestinians free an abducted Israeli soldier being held in Gaza since the end of June. Gilad Shalit was captured in a cross-border attack on June 25 which killed several other soldiers and which was carried out by terror factions allied with Hamas, the majority party in the Palestinian parliament.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during a visit to Israel, was told by the prime minister that the Jewish state wants to assist Abbas in implementing the "Road Map" peace plan and in creating better living conditions for the Palestinians, but Olmert rejected calls by the kidnappers and the Palestinian Authority that before the release of any prisoner, Israel should immediately free hundreds of jailed security prisoners as a confidence-building measure. Past releases of such prisoners is seen to have compromised Israeli security.

Attempting to remind Ms. Rice - and indeed the world - about this, Olmert said that releasing Palestinian prisoners before Israel Defense Forces Corporal Gilad Shalit is returned would result in Hamas demanding even more for his freedom. It is also feared that a capitulation in this arena would encourage Palestinian terrorists to increase their efforts to kidnap Israelis and blackmail Jerusalem into further exchanges of terrorists-for-soldiers. Despite his reluctance to a prisoner release, PM Olmert did agree to reopen a major crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel in the coming days.