After three years in captivity, Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit, may soon be transferred to Egypt as part of a prisoner swap, according to European sources. I pray that it's true and I pray that the swap is a one for one deal. it's not that I object to offering the hundreds of Hamas fighters that I am sure will be required to gain this one young man's release. It's that lasting peace will a lot closer when both sides of the conflict agree about the supreme value of even one of their own. But either way, it's time for this to happen.
Meanwhile, the Consulate General of Israel in New York released a YouTube video to draw attention to Shalit's plight. The project features Shalit's own story, "When the Shark and the Fish First Met," about two sea animals that were raised to hate and fear one another but then realized that everyone would be happier by making peace.
The video shows people from around the world reading Shalit's story in their native languages, including Italian, German, French and Spanish, with English subtitles. It's pretty beautiful, and well worth checking out.
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
The Shalit captivity is a true testimony to a failure of the human spirit on both sides. Israeli jails have thousand of Palestinians prisoners who from a Palestinian perspective are no different than Gilad Shalit. The only way for the Israelis to get to a point of willingness of release them was via a threat to Shalit's life.
The Hamas is no better, using its own captive people as bargaining chips for an extended amount of time to outsmart Israel completely ignoring the pain of the families of the Palestinian prisoners.
Politicians on both sides view this as a zero sum game. Unfortunately when Shalit is free the cycle of kinapping and jailing will go on.
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