Germany apparently mediates now between Israel and Hamas to bring an end to the case of the abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit who has been kept in Hamas custody in Gaza for almost exactly four years now. After Hamas as the last of the parties concerned ( after Israel and Egypt) has accepted Chancellor Merkels offer german intelligence officials have arrived in Kairo and talks have resumed..

Hamas: Only breakthrough in Shalit deal is German mediation - Haaretz - Israel News

The German BND has a long lasting and rather successful presence in the region and as it's not the first prisoner/body exchange it has been involved in, so the chances are high (imho) that this one can finally take place.

The only question is, whether both sides truely want it to take place or whether they fear to strengthen the other side by accepting an German moderated exchange.

That's the question Hamas and Israel have to answer for themselves, but at least non of them can hide behind the alibi of not having a reliable and acceptable broker.

__________________
"Homo Homini Lupus"
Thomas Hobbes

I wonder what it will cost them?

__________________

"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Approximately 350 - 450 Palestinian militants.

Prisoner exchange could see Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit released this week - Times Online

__________________

Kind of ironic, eh?

The gripe is Israel reacts with, what is it, "disproportional force"?.....yet when Germany arranges an exchange, it follows that one Israel is worth 3-400 Palestinians and all is well. Something’s off there…..

__________________

"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Probably because Israel is holding thousands of Palestinians while the Palestinians have....one.
Accordingly they try to get as many of their people released as possible. Seems pretty logical to me.

Well you have to ask the parties involved, somehow the israelis/hamas accepted this deal, so they both must be fine with one Israeli being worth 3-400 Palestineans.

Anyway for me they are all woth nothing, but 60 years of repeating trouble and I'm just damn happy that apart from arms deals ( with the Israelis) and prisoners exchanges ( Israelis and Hisbolah/Hamas), we don't have to deal with these irrational folks that often and that none of their lobbies have such a strong grip on us, like they have in other countries.

__________________
"Homo Homini Lupus"
Thomas Hobbes

German FM Guido Westerwelle, who is in Israel right now, has declined to comment on numbers of exchanged prisoners or other details of a deal, saying nothing is fix yet and that premature speculation would be counterproductive :

German FM: Premature talk could jinx Shalit deal - Haaretz - Israel News

Honeybumblebee Westerwillli mediates between the Hamas, the Hamas, the Hamas and ... what was the name of this little country in the middle east? Did he fly with our experienced honorable honeybee Merkl or is he on his own blindflight?

YouTube - Biene Maja [Theme Song]

__________________
Soldiers in Afghanistan: Don't defend vote riggers and drug dealers. Come home friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFlKx3YPL5I

---
Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Etruh7Ch8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs

You're extremely narrow-minded. The disproportion of the situation (largely created by Israel) is exactly why one IDF soldier is worth 300-400 Palestinian prisoners (the majority of which are not prisoners of war, but being held in Israeli prisons without charge). Hamas may be a terrorist organization, but anyone with a shred of objectivity can see that Israel is also a fascist, terrorist state.

but? What means "but" in case of a terroristic organization?

Let me mediate between your view and your view on the world: You are not only an antisemitic barbar you are somehow also a perverse ignorant of historical facts.

The problem of the Israeli is very simple: They can do nearly nothing against the weapon "population bomb" of the palestinian Arabs. If the whole world had done it in the same way since 1800 A.D. - where about 1 billion people existed in the whole world - then today the population of the world would be about 200 billion people and we all would be nothgin else than only a natural catastrophe without any chance to survive.

If someone takes a look at this background and the poorness of the whole region in natural ressources then it seems to be indeed a wonder that not a kind of "total war" happens there - like the Nazis did it in complete mental derangement. Nevertheless the siuation is very dangerous and in my eyes Germany is absolutely the last nation what shoud mediate in this problems - because indeed some of the hard and harsh arguments all people in the region have to hear are arguments of of self fullfilling poorness, suffer, destruction, sickness and death.

If I see it in the right way, then the Arabs who are living in Palestine like to have 3 solutions: Either all Jews will be murdered immediatelly or the state Israel should be under a majorite of an arab population so they can do whatever they like to do with Jews in a longer term (what means also to kill them) - or (3): they like to build a state who is in a neverending fight with Israel - while nearly all the palestinian Arabs themselve seem to be nothing else than only slaves and/or weapons in the hands of the leaders of some criminal clans.

I don't think that the most Germans today - let me call them the "Honeybee-Maya-Germans" - are able to understand only a little of the very deep destructive and existential problems in this area. In my view of the world I'm very astonished about the calmness of so many Jews in Israel because I would drive crazy if I had to live in such a situation. Whatever: God may give them everythgin what they need to solve theur problems - while I'm quite sure we (=the Germans in total - wether we are Jews or not) are absolutely not able to help the Jews and/or Arabs in this area in a long term or in case of a sudden desaster. We are also not able to take only a little part of responsibilty in this dirty modern game of endless frustrations.

By the way - there's also a paradoxon existing what most Germans - or even most people in the whole world including Jews - are not able to see until today in the right spiritual dimensions. Most Jews were somehow nothing else than Germans - using the german language yiddish - before "we" started to murder "them" while we started indeed to murder our own soul. No: it's really not good if Germans like to start to be mediators in case of Jews. It's somehow nothing else than the wish of Germans to be "normal" people like all other people in the world. But anyhow the pure egoisms - called pragmatism - seems to be the only kind of politics what today is existing. If I would be a Jew and would think about that Germans are starting to think about my real existential problems and the "final solution" of this problems I would have to start to laugh. Also the first travel of Westerwelle to Poland shows maybe also a kind of irrealsim about the situation of Jews in Poland. I don't know what Westerwelle is really thinking - but maybe it's also good never to hear what he's really thinking.

---

My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed myself and quietened my ambitions. I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content. Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and for evermore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rINjSc9QmrI

__________________
Soldiers in Afghanistan: Don't defend vote riggers and drug dealers. Come home friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFlKx3YPL5I

---
Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Etruh7Ch8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs

Of course none of what you says counters the point that the State of Israel regularly engages in terrorist tactics and has a fascist policy toward Arabs.

__________________
Nothing to see here.

You are a Nazi calling Jews Nazis - that's all. What you are saying is a perverse idiocy in the quality of the attacks of people like Mahmud Ahmadinedschad. In my eyes there's no need for a german mediation - specially not if people like Westerwilli are doing so - who maybe likes to be only a second kind of Hans-Dietrich Genscher and is maybe only thinking about how to sell himself in his own vanity items. Specially I fear Jews could maybe think Germans would really be able to help - but we are not able to so. Wrong irrealistic promises and/or mediations to create a wrong irrealistic hope is a danger and helps nothing. There are some basic problems no one has any idea about what to do and people like we who don't have any idea about the real problems - nor do have a real self-awareness in all this circumstances and our own part in all this problems - are not able to be mediators. That's only nonsense. If Arabs are maybe prefering Germans in communication with Jews because of the great words of the great german leader Adolf Hitler - then this is a completly wrong film. Someone who is directly or indirectly involved in all this problem cannot be a mediator.

__________________
Soldiers in Afghanistan: Don't defend vote riggers and drug dealers. Come home friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFlKx3YPL5I

---
Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Etruh7Ch8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs

Here we go again. Everybody who doesn't agree with you is a Nazi in your black and white world.

Both sides in this conflict have to take the blame. The Palestinians as well as the Israelis.

__________________
"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things."

Make it the radicals on boths sides are responsible for this useless, endless conflict and I'm on board. Hell from time to time I wish those useless fanatics were to take a shower, take a deep breath of hot steam and get over their mindless hatred.

__________________
"Homo Homini Lupus"
Thomas Hobbes