Petition to Condition Money for Hamas with Freedom for Shalit

Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
A7 News

(IsraelNN.com) Noam Shalit, whose son Gilad was kidnapped by Hamas and allied terrorists in June 2006, is asking people to sign a petition initiated by the Aish HaTorah yeshiva that the Obama administration condition the soldier's release on its proposal to give the terrorist authority $300 million in aid. Noam Shalit has “requested” that people sign the petition, according to Aish HaTorah, which operates one of the most popular websites on Judaism and Torah. “The United States government has decided to grant Gaza 300 million dollars, no strings attached,” Aish states in introducing the petition. “Why not attach some strings -- to wit, require the release of Gilad Shalit as a condition for receiving this money? Surely this is a much better idea than pressuring Israel to release 1,000 terrorists, many of them multiple murderers who will resume their terror activities as soon as they are freed.”

Noam Shalit's backing for the petition represents an about-face from previous attempts, promoted by many Israeli academics and the media, to encourage freeing terrorists for the return of Shalit. The soldier's condition is not known. He reportedly is in good physical health, but Hamas has refused to honor the Geneva Convention that requires allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit captives.

Several groups campaigning for freeing Shalit have previously tried to pressure Israel to halt Red Cross visits to terrorists imprisoned unless Hamas offers the same right.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in Russia that Israel will not change its last offer of freeing terrorists in exchange for Shalit. He asked Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to inform Hamas it will not agree to add more terrorists to the list that Hamas has rejected.

Shalit has sometimes been described as the “last Jew in Gaza' following the Israeli expulsion of all Jewish residents of the area in 2005. His exact whereabouts are not known, but one Arab media source has suggested that the British journalist arrested earlier this week by Hamas was trying to locate the soldier. The journalist, Paul Martin, was taken into custody after appearing at a courthouse where a trial was held for an alleged collaborator with Israel.