[extropy-chat] RE: Near East: The mother of all crappy deals

[David Lubkin]

Russell Evermore asked:

>In a so called "historic" prisoner swap brokered with Hezbollah, Israel is
>freeing some 420+ live prisoners and 59 dead militants in exchange for the
>release of ONE live Israeli business man and THREE dead Israeli soldiers?

Dennis May replied:

>It is historic because that is the word they like to use when talking
>about anything to do with the Middle East.  It could also be that the
>reporter and editors are in their 20's and have no memory of how
>that kind of swap has happened many times for many decades.

A friend of mine called me as soon as he read about this on debka, to see 
if I could explain to him what was going on. I couldn't. Israel has done 
lopsided deals for many years, but they've generally involved getting back 
live POWs and they have never been this one-sided. More typical might be 3 
POWs for 100 prisoners. And, in this case, the parents of one of the dead 
soldiers don't want Israel to do the deal.

I don't know what the true explanation is, but I'm sure there is one. It 
may take a while to surface though.


-- David Lubkin.