Freeing Gilad Shalit & Netanyahu

The New York Times has weighed in on the political implications of Gilad Shalit's return home and the release of 1027 Arab Palestinian terrorists. Over the last week the paper covered the exciting events, mostly from the Israeli side of the equation. Today's Editorial however was a taunt directed at Prime Minister Netanyahu, who for reasons unclear, the New York Times has an especially personal and paranoid agenda towards. "Why", goes the NYT's thesis, "Mr. Netanyahu, you sleazy, right-winger, politician will you negotiate and compromise with Hamas, who are far more rejectionist, but won't negotiate and compromise with Abbas and the Palestinian Authority?"

Huh? Are these people kidding me? Do they not get the news? Is there some sort of dementia going on here?

Our prime minister, whose actions and words reflect the will of many, many Israelis, has begged and begged Abbas to resume negotiations. He has made our starting position clear: an autonomous Palestinian state that is non-militarized provided that the Palestinians allow the State Of Israel to exist in peace as a liberal democracy and as the homeland of the Jewish people. Netanyahu has made that offer over and over and over again.

So far all Abbas has done is to try to align the entire United Nations up against the State Of Israel. That is not a counter offer; that is a declaration of absolute rejectionism.

By contrast, Hamas was far more willing to negotiate. We made offers and demands; they made offers and demands. The dictates of the moment and the needs of the sides made this past week the most best time for compromise.

If only Mahmoud Abbas could put up.

One other thing irks me about the Editorial. Look at this line in the first paragraph:

We will leave it to the Israeli people to debate whether the deal — which includes the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners — will make their country safer or lead to more violence or more abductions of Israeli soldiers or other citizens. 

Why are safety and violence up to debate? Does the New York Times live in some morally relative universe? Or are the Wisemen Of Eighth Avenue hinting that violence against Jews is something that's negotiable?

Hmm. Makes me wonder.