Hamas-Israel prisoner exchange?

I just saw Mohamed Nazal of Hamas on al-Jazeera claiming that Hamas and Israel had agreed in principle to a prisoner exchange which would end the six week old military confrontation in Gaza.  If true, this would mean the that the crisis resolved largely along the lines Hamas  proposed weeks ago and Israel firmly rejected.  It would mean that the same deal could have been achieved many weeks ago, without the devastation of Palestinian lives and infrastructure.  And it would have obvious implications for what we might expect of a resolution between Hezbollah and Israel.  Let's see what develops. 

Comments

[Schwa-Schwa]

I have had a theory that this whole thing is about showing us how big Olmert's balls are and that if Sharon was still in power it would never have happened, blah blah blah. Am I wrong, do you think? (About the Sharon theory - I am in no doubt as to the size of Olmert's balls.)

I don't think most people would expect Israel to do nothing, and if Israel successfully assassinated Nasrallah a day or two after the initial kidnapping I suspect that reaction in the West would be pretty quiet save some jumping up and down by the hard left and the sort of people who really like due process. (I include myself in the second group, but it would have to be better than Qana.) I really think that if Israel had made a few strikes and then stopped and said "Hand over Nasrallah or there's more to come", the Lebanese public might have done it - there wasn't the patriotic rallying around HA initially. Am I dreaming?

[jack]

Mark,

Israel has to defend itself from Hamas and Islamic Jihad's qassams which have been flying into Israel proper ever since the evacuation of gaza. No country would react differently. If the Palestinians want to kill Israeli civilians instead of trying to build a real future for themselves, then they have only themselves to blame if their infrastructure is destroyed. Most Americans can now see through the Hamas's and Fatah's double talk now and should take at face value Hamas's charter which calls for the destruction of the Zionist entity. Enough pussyfooting around with Islamist terrorists. If the free world doesn't step up to this threat there will be a huge price to pay in the very near future.

[the aardvark]

jack - all irrelevant. Only issue for discussion in this post is whether Israel has agreed in principle to an exchange of prisoners to end the conflict, and what this would mean if true.

[Nate]

I hope that we will not negotiate under terms of kidnaping or rocket fireing.

We left Gaza and I hope we will leave the most of the west bank. After that if the terrorists want to continue pushing us, let's fight and kill whoever is supporting them.