A lot has been, and more will be, said about freeing Gilad Shalit in exchange for one thousand palestinian prisoners.
Yes, freeing criminals is not such a smart thing to do. Still, they won't make much difference to us, there are plenty of would-be martyrs out there anyway. The pros and the cons are well known, I'm not willing to go into that quicksand.
There is however one argument that has thus far eluded both sides. Israel is about to get back a young man who never did anything wrong, a simple citizen of this country. The palestinians, on the other hand, are going to be flooded with almost one thousand criminals, and good luck building a stable society with that (Hamas could use some stability in light of recent and ongoing events in the region, and even though it won a few points with the Shalit deal, this is not quite what ordinary people need for their daily lives to run smoothly).
One simple citizen for us, one thousand criminals for them. We win.
1 hour ago