Addressing a Bar Ilan University forum on captive soldiers, Noam Shalit, the father of Gilad Shalit, told participants that the effort by the government towards negotiating a deal for his son’s release lacks determination and creativity.

Mr. Shalit added that he told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after his son spent two years in Hamas custody that he has failed, calling the government’s methodology a failure, expressing his frustration with the concept of the negotiators who ask Hamas to submit a list of names of terrorists to be freed, then rejecting the list.

He spoke of a prime minister who sits in an “ivory tower,” suggesting that he place himself in a dark basement instead, trying to feel what it must be like for Gilad.

In recent days, statements by the prime minister have been less encouraging than when he sought support for his Gaza ceasefire, at which time he assured the Shalits and the Israeli people that the implementation of the ceasefire would facilitate obtaining Gilad’s release. Now the prime minister speaks of a “complicated process” and an effort that will take time.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)