WJC Vice-President Charlotte Knobloch welcomed the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip. „The cruel, five-year-long ordeal of Gilad and his familiy has finally come to an end! These are excellent news for the Jewish people as a whole.“
"Today’s luck has, however, a serious flaw“, continued Knobloch recalling that, as a countermove, more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners will be released – among them many who were proven participants in terror attacks counting among the most disastrous in the history of Israel. Knobloch also recalled the destiny of another imprisoned soldier: „In these days, with our thoughts and our prayers, we feel intenisvely with Ron Arad and his familiy.“ The pilot of the Israeli Air Force had crashed on 16th October, 1986, over the Lebanon and was taken prisoner by Lebanese militiamen. Until this day his destiny has remained uncertain.
"It is a fact“, says Knobloch, "that Israel does not leave alone its children. And the fact that Gilad’s parents are now able to hug their son again in their arms, means that he has also returned into the arms of all of us.“ That is why the Jewish community all over the world is standing at the side of Israel and the government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanjahu which has taken a very courageous decision.
Knobloch said her special thanks were directed to the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the German mediator as well as to the Egyptian government for their untiring efforts without which Shalit’s release would not have been possible.
There is, however, also this fact: „As in the past the radical Islamistic Hamas is much more interested in keeping up the terror rather than to have at its heart the well-being of the Palestinian population!“ Thus, the danger of terrorism for Israel might drasticlly and significantly increase now, fears Knobloch. "That is why it is so very important that there will again be direct and open-ended negotiations. Like any sovereign state Israel, too, claims for itself the right to live within secure borders“, continued Knobloch. „It is time that the threat to its existence, with which the people of Israel have had to live since the foundation of the state in 1948, must finally come to an end.“
