There was nothing even vaguely courageous about his cabinet members' decision to vote for their release. Theirs was an act of utter cravenness. They dishonored the victims, the victims' families and the nation as a whole.Well said, and at this point, I'm decidedly not defending him anymore. If he were to encounter another trumped up scandal like he once did when he was first elected, how could anyone he kicked in the face bring themselves to help him? It was once the same situation with former president Moshe Katsav. He may have been wrongly convicted of rape a few years ago, but since he refused to speak in defense of the people whom Ariel Sharon wronged, he lost the support he could have found.
And they endangered the country. According to the Almagor Victims of Terror organization, from 2000 to 2005, 180 Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists released by Israel in previous "deals." And those terrorists had been imprisoned for non-lethal actions, (i.e., without blood on their hands).
The fact that Netanyahu and his ministers passed this decision simply to provide a sufficient payoff to Abbas for him to send Saeb Erekat to Washington to talk about nothing with Livni, makes their actions, not only craven, but insane. [...]
What is surprising - and frightening - is that Netanyahu, who is not a true believer, and knows that they are true believers, is going along with this.
Netanyahu knows that Israel cannot survive without Judea and Samaria. He knows what the Muslim Brotherhood is. He knows the nature of the Iranian regime. He knows that the PLO is no different from Hamas. Their goal is the same - they want to destroy Israel.
Netanyahu knows that Obama is hostile to Israel and that he will not lift a finger to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
So why is he going along with their insanity? In bowing to US pressure and approving the release of 104 terrorist murderers from prison, Netanyahu behaved like a coward. In bowing to US pressure not to bomb Iran's nuclear installations, Netanyahu is being a coward.
The most important question for Israel today then is whether our leader is capable of being anything else.