Israel frets over Gilad Shalit deal as national euphoria fades

The Gilad Shalit deal has set a dangerous precedent for prisoner exchanges and weakened the Palestinian Authority, say some Israeli officials.

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With the euphoria from the release last week of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit fading, the Israeli establishment is looking ahead to the implications of the sweeping deal ? and questioning whether the precedent the deal set is one it or the Palestinian Authority can support.

Some members of the Israeli government and military are concerned about two possibilities: that the deal is making huge, imbalanced prisoner exchanges the norm, rather than the exception ? and that it has undermined the moderate Palestinian Authority too much.

The Israeli Defense Forces is poised to recommend that Israel make a series of gestures to the Palestinian Authority in order to undo some of the damage the Shalit deal did to its credibility. The deal bolstered the Fatah-dominated PA's rival, Hamas, at the expense of PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his more moderate party.

Gestures include releasing additional Palestinian prisoners and ceding more land in the West Bank to Palestinian security control. "The army considers this necessary to help Abbas regain the upper hand in his ongoing battle with Hamas for control of the territories, since Israel's intelligence agencies all concur that the Shalit deal, in which Hamas obtained the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one kidnapped soldier, bolstered the Islamic organization at the PA's expense," Haaretz reports.

However, several of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's advisers and cabinet ministers oppose the IDF's proposal, saying that Mr. Abbas and the PA need to be punished for their bid for UN recognition of a Palestinian state. Haaretz reports that the IDF is concerned that Abbas feels so undermined that he is seriously considering resigning his post and believes that concessions to Abbas need to be substantial ones to help him climb out of a hole that Israel helped dig.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/rOIW-E8Q29c/Israel-frets-over-Gilad-Shalit-deal-as-national-euphoria-fades

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