1000 Terrorists for Schalit?

Acceding to Hamas's terms would instantly erase every one of the Gaza operation's putative achievements.

First, on a purely tactical level, it would instantly restore Hamas's fighting ranks to full strength. Nobody knows exactly how many Hamas operatives were killed in Gaza, but even the highest estimates do not exceed several hundred. Hence the mooted prisoner release would completely replace them.

Worse, it would replace them with far more skilled and experienced terrorists. Though the IDF killed a few high-level operatives in Gaza, most of the casualties were rank and file. In contrast, the prisoners Hamas is demanding by name are high-level planners, organizers, bomb-makers and operations experts. Hence in terms of operative capabilities, Hamas would actually emerge stronger than it was before the Gaza operation.

Moreover, statistics compiled by defense agencies indicate that roughly 50 percent of all terrorists released in previous prisoner exchanges resumed terrorist activity. Indeed, freed terrorists have been responsible for hundreds of deaths in recent years. There is no reason to believe the Schalit deal would be any different. Thus this deal would effectively sign death warrants for dozens.

OVER THE long run, however, worst of all is what it would do for Hamas's prestige.

The Gaza operation's impact on Palestinian attitudes toward Hamas remains unclear. Initial reports indicate that while there may have been some disenchantment in Gaza, the organization actually gained support in the West Bank, where its wildly inflated claims of its own heroism and Israel's casualties, reported as fact by Al Jazeera, have apparently been widely believed. But that could change once the truth emerges.

The proposed Schalit deal, in contrast, would give Hamas an undeniably genuine achievement that no other terrorist group has ever come close to matching.

Even the infamous Jibril exchange, one of the most lopsided deals in the country's history, traded 1,150 terrorists for three soldiers, or a ratio of 383:1. The Tannenbaum swap exchanged 435 terrorists for one drug dealer and three dead bodies. The Schalit deal's proposed ratio is over 1,000:1 - almost three times the highest ratio ever previously accepted.

No rational person looking at that figure could fail to conclude that Hamas brought the IDF to its knees. And certainly, no Palestinian will...

A government is responsible for the welfare of the entire country, not that of any specific individual. And no one individual justifies the immense long-term strategic damage we would suffer by acceding to Hamas's demands.