Pardoned vermin receive red-carpet treatment

So, Israel pardons 5 brutal moslem murderers, who subsequently receive the red carpet treatment at the Lebanon airport with a huge moslem rally to follow. Yup, the war against Hezballah went really, really well I'd say...

J-Post: Five Lebanese prisoners freed by Israel in exchange for the two slain IDF reservists received an official welcome at the Beirut airport on Wednesday by President Michel Suleiman and his government.

Suleiman, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and members of major political factions - including Hizbullah's rivals - led a long line of politicians, as well as Muslim and Christian clerics, in greeting them on the airport's tarmac in a show of unity and opposition to Israel.

The five were flown by two army helicopters from the southern Lebanese border town of Naqoura, where they were cheered by hundreds of spectators and received a red-carpet welcome and a Hizbullah honor guard.

At the airport, the five stood in battle fatigues on a stand as the president addressed them as "the freed heroes."

"Your return is a new victory, and the future with you will only be a shining march in which we achieve the sovereignty of our land and the freedom of people," Suleiman said in his address. "I congratulate the resistance [Hizbullah] for this new achievement."

The five, including Samir Kuntar - Israel's longest-held Lebanese prisoner - then shook hands with and kissed the dignitaries on their second stop before a massive Hizbullah welcome rally in south Beirut.

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah appeared at the rally and congratulated the freed prisoners. The black-turbaned Nasrallah walked on stage surrounded by bodyguards and shook hands, hugged and kissed each of the five men, who were freed as part of a prisoner exchange.

Earlier Wednesday, after being driven across the border by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the men changed into camouflage uniforms. An honor guard carrying Lebanese, Hizbullah and Palestinian flags escorted the men to the stage as a brass band played martial music and rows of uniformed fighters saluted in Naqoura.

In his first comments after his release, Kuntar told Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV, "I salute today those who sacrificed in order to achieve this new victory."

Kuntar greeted Nasrallah and Hizbullah operatives "who raised our heads high up."

In 1979, Kuntar and three other gunmen made their way in a rubber dinghy from Lebanon to Nahariya, five miles south of the Lebanese border. There, in a hail of gunfire and exploding grenades, they killed a policeman who stumbled upon them, then burst into the apartment of Danny Haran, herding him and his four-year-old daughter out of the house at gunpoint to the beach below, where they were killed.

Wonder how the family of Kuntar's victims felt?

J-Post: They said they couldn't watch the government handing over terrorists who would kill again, for two dead soldiers - especially when the state did not have any information on the soldiers' condition ahead of the exchange.

"I understood today what sort of a person leads Israel - a person who disgraces us and the entire Israeli people," said Yoram Shahar, brother of Eliyahu Shahar, the policeman murdered by terrorist Samir Kuntar in a 1979 attack in Nahariya. "The prime minister needs to resign from his position and hand the reins to someone else, someone more competent who cares about this country,"

In that same attack, Kuntar also murdered Dan Haran, 31, and his four-year-old daughter, Einat. The Harans' younger daughter, Yael, was smothered to death as her mother, Smadar - the sole survivor of the incident - tried to keep her quiet so the terrorists wouldn't find their hiding place.

On Wednesday, as Israel handed Kuntar - who was serving four life sentences - over to Lebanon, the families felt abandoned.

Dan Haran's brother, Roni Keren, a 55-year-old insurance agent and water polo coach from Kiryat Tivon, said the swap made him feel ashamed.

"And this is not just me - many people call us and tell us that they're embarrassed to see this government setting these terrorists free," he told the Post.

"This humaneness will kill us all," Keren said. "It is unprecedented that these terrorists live here at our expense, study and have a normal community life [in jail], and then they are freed to carry out more terrorist attacks. We face a cruel enemy, and we need to think of changing the way we handle them."

Keren said the family had gone to his brother's grave on Wednesday during the long hours of the prisoner swap.

"We couldn't sit home and watch them handing Hizbullah the murderer of my brother," he said. "We told Dan that we were sorry that we didn't do enough to stop this deal, and we should have."

The time has come for Olmert to be publicly executed. Israel doesn't need another election, it needs a coup, a revolution. Alas, too many Israelis have become indoctrinated with peacenik mentality, renounced their Jewish identitites, and given up the fight for survival. They are tired, beaten, Hellenized, and ready to be marched like lemmings into the sea.

-MZ