Gilad Shalit Is Not A Prisoner Of War--He Is A Hostage

To claim that Gilad Shalit is a prisoner of war is to surrender to the language used by the Hamas terrorist group that holds him and violates international law.

French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Levi notes:

there are, first of all, international conventions governing the status of prisoners of war, and the sole fact that this one has been sequestered for four years, the fact that the Red Cross, which regularly visits Palestinians in Israeli prisons, has never been granted access to him is a flagrant violation of the laws of war. But moreover and most of all, we must never tire of repeating this: Shalit was not captured in the fury of a battle but during a raid in Israel, when Israel, having evacuated Gaza, was at peace with its neighbor.

Hamas knows exactly what it is doing in kidnapping and holding Gilad Shalit--following in the footsteps of other terrorist groups such as FARC and its terrorist sponsor Iran:

Shalit is not a prisoner of war but a hostage. His fate is comparable to that of, not a Palestinian prisoner, but a kidnap victim being held for ransom. And he must then be defended as we defend the hostages of the FARC or the Libyans or the Iranians -- we must stand up for him with the same energy devoted to the defense of, say, Clotilde Reiss [a French student accused by Iran of being an agent of the French Secret Service] or Ingrid Betancourt [French-Colombian politician, former senator and anti-corruption activist kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and rescued 6 years later].

It is time to stop playing the game being played by the Hamas terrorists and their apologists--not to mention the flotillas, whose deceptions are revealed by their refusal to bring aid to or visit Gilad Shalit in Gaza.

Technorati Tag: Gilad Shalit.