As Gilad Shalit continues to linger in Hamas custody, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is attending a conference in France, is promising that Israel will release additional terrorists in yet another ‘good will gesture’ to the Palestinian Authority.

In the meantime, talks have broken down towards securing the release of IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit, who has been in custody for over two years.

His family was angered and pained when the government agreed to enter into a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in Gaza without making the release of Gilad a precondition to such a move. Olmert and his cabinet acted contrary to the opinions of most senior military and intelligence community officials.

Olmert on Sunday met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Paris. Turkey is playing a key mediation role in preliminary talks between Israel and Syria; talks many feel are nothing more than a diversionary tactic by Olmert who is seeking to create a smokescreen to deflect attention from ongoing police investigations against him. Critics insist the talks lack any substance, pointing out that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has not waved his demand that Israel agree to an unconditional total withdrawal from the Golan Heights as a precondition to direct negotiations.

In the meantime, without any commitment from the PA, Olmert has stated that regardless of any agreements with the PA, he sees additional prisoner releases under the umbrella of Israeli good will gestures as a realistic possibility.

During the meeting on Sunday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Olmert stated that while there are still difference, “Israel and the Palestinians have never been so close to achieving real peace.”

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)