On October 18, 2011 Gilad Shalit was released from captivity in Gaza, in exchange for 1027 Palestinian terrorists that were being held in Israeli prisons.

Who is at fault for the kidnapping?

Personally I am loathe to the idea of assigning blame or otherworldly reasons while the operation to retrieve the boys is underway. There will be plenty of time later for blame.. for now it is just divisive and distracting.

However, the Jpost has an article in which they quote the Chief Rabbi of Tzfat, Rav Shmuel Eliyahu (though VIN calls him the "chief cleric of Tzfat", whatever that is) in which he blames the Shalit family for the kidnapping because of their attitude of whining and playing on emotion and sentiment...

One of the major factors contributing to the erosion of Israeli society was the atmosphere of ‘me as the individual’ and the loss of national identity,” Eliyahu wrote.
“The Schalit family and the group that put in motion the campaign around it [for the release of their son] enhanced this erosion,” he wrote. “It adopted an attitude of whining and playing on sentiment.
They blamed everyone [and] perpetuated the culture of ‘I deserve it.’ It was as if the only important thing to consider is today, not what happens tomorrow. As long as they get their son back, damn the consequences, even if it means that innocent civilians will pay the awful price. And the awful price has come. Three young boys were kidnapped.”
Eliyahu drew a comparison between the Schalit family and its vocal public relations campaign to pressure the government for their son’s release after five years in captivity, and the reaction of the families of the kidnapped youngsters who went missing 11 days ago.
“Today, a new spirit is blowing,” the rabbi wrote admiringly of the families of Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah. “It is a spirit of might and heroism, a spirit of responsibility, a spirit of unity.
It’s a more responsible, healthier, more moral spirit. This spirit is alive and well in the army and the government, the Knesset and the entire public.
It’s a spirit of remedying the defects of the past.”
“This spirit is being fostered by the families of the young people,” the rabbi added.
“With quiet conduct, they have managed to tug on the heartstrings of the Israeli society and to rehabilitate it.
There are no accusations of guilt, no whining, no public pressure, no bitterness. What they do have is belief.”

I think it is crass to blame the Shalit family for this. They just wanted their kid back, and did whatever they could to get him back. It was the government that made a deal, and agreed to certain conditions, such as the ratio for the prisoner swap - not the Shalit family.

Even if their methods were not to my liking or your liking, they do not bear the blame for the recent kidnapping. Blaming them now is just cruel.

This picture hit the digital "airwaves" yesterday.. it is of Gilad Shalit and his girlfriend at a hotel. Shalit, due to the picture, came under a lot of criticism for taking advantage of publicity in order to get a free hotel stay. The couple have denied it and say they paid for the hotel.

Personally, I don't care who paid for their hotel stay. I am happy to see that Shalit is getting on with his life.

Gilad Shalit accompanying aliyah flight from N.Y.

  -- JTA

I hope this flight does not get hijacked... that would be really bad luck...

Sgt. Gilad Schalit said the Hagomel Blessing – the blessing said by those who are delivered from danger – for first time since his release, on Thursday. The blessing is said in a prayer quorum by those who have journeyed over the seas, have been released from prison, recovered from a serious illness or have travelled through the desert. He said the blessing at an event in the memory of IDF hero Lt. Col. Emanuel Moreno Hy"d, which was also attended by Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home Party). Bennett was a close friend of Moreno, who fell in the 2nd Lebanon War and who served in such a sensitive position that his picture has still not been releasd to the public.

I still like this picture of Shalit in a Chicago Bears hat

By now you must surely be aware that the account Gilad Shalit told his interrogators regarding the incident in which he was taken hostage by Hamas operatives, and subsequently held for 5 years until public pressure mounted via a campaign for his release pushed the Prime Minister to make a deal to exchange Palestinians in Israeli jails for the freedom of Shalit.

If you have not read Shalit's version of the incident, you should.

I don't want to criticize Gilad Shalit at this point for his lack of action in preventing his capture. Shalit has suffered enough, during his 5 years of captivity and with whatever trauma he will have to suffer for the rest of his life, and I am confident he did not intentionally try to be captured, and he did not sabotage the IDF tank or position at the time.

All I will say is that not everyone in the army, in any army, is a hero, and not everyone acts with extreme bravery under difficult circumstances. He failed, he was captured, he did not put up a fight. Hopefully the army will analyze what happened and figure out better protocol to prevent such incidents in the future.

Israel paid a high price for his release. Perhaps the price paid was even too high. Despite the doomsday predictions as to what would be the result of releasing so many high profile terrorists, the Israeli security forces have been able to keep things under control. Still, Israel will also hopefully have reevaluated the policy on hostage negotiation and figure out a method to obtain the release of captives without paying ridiculously high prices. Should the high price paid be any factor considering the revelation of the conditions surrounding Shalit's capture? I think not. What's done was done, Shalit was not guilty of anything more than cowardice and perhaps a few army regulations such as abandoning a weapon, and he has suffered plenty as a result.

I signed the petition. Please, you should also sign. Freedom is a present and a great privelege.  Thank you to everyone who acted on my behalf. Now please join the efforts to save Pollard.

  -- Gilad Shalit

The petition is now up to over 144,000 signatures, as of this writing. If you have not yet signed, take the minute or two it requires and please do.

The question they should have asked Gilad is if since his freedom has he watched either (or both) the popular Israeli TV show HaChatufim about a POW who was released to freedom and was suspected to be a double agent, or the American spin-off of that show called Homeland, and if he has seen it how does he identify with it...

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

The following clip is the promo for a new movie about to be released by Hamas in which the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit will be re-enacted on the big screen.

Coming soon, to a theater near you...



------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

A news site is reporting that today is Gilad Shalit's 26th birthday. Happy birthday. It goes on to report how he plans to celebrate his first birthday back as a free man with his friends, and it asks the readers what they would wish him for his birthday.

I thought about it, and I connected it to another event from a couple of days ago. When the new school year started this week, many of the news websites had pictures of little Moishie Holzberg entering first grade. Moishie Holzberg is the son of the Chabad shlichim in India who were killed a few years ago in a terrorist attack.

I wish to Gilad Shalit, and to Moishie Holzberg, that they should be able to live out their lives at some point without the prying eyes of the media and the public continuously looking to see what they are doing and how they are doing it. it is enough that they have to live with their pain and memories, they should not also have to live forever with the torture of having the public attention never let them have a quiet moment...

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

GILAD SHALIT AT CONFERENCE OF PRESIDENTS IN NYC



------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Headline Of The Day

Gilad Shalit's new Job: Sports Commentator For Yediot Acharonot

  -- Walla News

good for him. not what I expected, but good for him.

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Gilad Schalit Meets Prime Minister Netanyahu



------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Picture Of The Day


When Gilad Shalit met with PM Netanyahu earlier today, he said "I've come to thank you for getting me back"
------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

The latest Gilad Shalit news of interest..

• there was a report on the news the other day that Gilad Shalit will be released from the army within the next 2 weeks. He will still continue to receive his treatments and therapy and whatnot paid for by the army, as any wounded veteran does.
• Noam Shalit said he planned on writing a book about the ordeal, but Gilad has nixed it, for now. According to Noam, Gilad will soon be ready to speak, for the first time, to the media and public about what happened. 
• Noam Shalit is coming under criticism for saying in an interview that if he was a Palestinian, he too would be involved in kidnapping Israelis. I happen to think what he says is correct and true. Ehud Barak said something similar a while back and also came under criticism. I don't think there is anything wrong with saying that - it is recognizing a reality, not saying they are right for doing it. At the same time, Shalit said that after Gilad's kidnapping, Israel should have stopped transfers of tax money and gas to Gaza.
• According to this, Gilad just went for the first time since his return to the Kotel. The author of that post thinks he went now only as part of Noam's campaign for election to Knesset in the Labor party, considering that he has found the time and strength to travel the world, but had not yet gone to the Kotel.. 

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

While Gilad Shalit is no doubt still suffering, and will for a long time, from his time in captivity, it is nice to see the occasional news tidbit that shows Shalit integrating back into normal society and a normal life. He was recently in the United States and even attended the NBA All Star game.

Today it was announced that Gilad Shalit will be heading the annual bike race called "Pedaling For Peace 2012" organized by the Akko municipality in May. Last year peddling for Peace cycled to raise awareness for the release of Gilad Shalit, so this year, after he was actually released, they invited him to lead the ride.

And, perhaps, if Shlomo Benizri feels his captivity was worse than Shalit's, perhaps he needs to go through a similar rehab and system of integration.. Get Benizri a bike!



------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Picture Of The Day

Gilad Shalit, while visiting the United States, with Omri Casspi, Israeli basketball player for the Cleveland Cavaliers... nice to see Gilad Shalit enjoying himself a bit. Photo taken from Omri Casspi's Facebook page

------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

Quote Of The Day

While I was in captivity, I thought a lot about sufganiyot..

  -- Gilad Shalit

(source: NRG)

Picture of the Day

We don't hear much about Gilad Shalit nowadays, thank God, but here he is looking good..

Gilad Shalit Releases Message Of Gratitude To Those Who Worked For His Release