NU/NRP MK Levy backs prisoner swap on condition that they be sent out of Israel.
By JPOST.COM STAFFyitzhak levy 298.88(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
MK Yitzhak Levy (NU/NRP) announced on Wednesday morning that he would prepared to support the release of his daughter's killers in return for captured IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Schalit.
Levy - whose daughter, Ayelet Hashahar Levy, was killed by a car bomb in Jerusalem in November 2000 - sent a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, urging him to include the perpetrators of the attack in a prisoner swap deal, on the condition that they then be banished from Israel.
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In an interview with Army Radio, Levy said that "there is only one way in which a prisoner release would be reasonable, and that is [by] sending them outside of the state of Israel and [the PA territories] and keeping them in another country."
He added that he was also prepared to release other prisoners with blood on their hands as part of a prisoner exchange, stressing that "Gilad's return home is more important than one prisoner or another sitting in jail."
"We have to do everything [possible] to bring our children back home, and this includes releasing security prisoners," he said. "It's possible to release prisoners with blood on their hands, on the condition that they do not return to Gaza or the West Bank. This is a security requirement, as well as a national one."
According to Levy, the Palestinian prisoners would undoubtedly return to their former bases of operation and continue to plan and carry out terror attacks against Israel if they were allowed to remain in the country.
Levy added that he did not know the fate of those responsible for his daughter's death.
"I'm speaking in principle, not technically," he said. "And it's reasonable to assume that the major planners are in jail because they carried out a number of terror attacks and not just this attack. But if they're in jail [and could be] exchanged for Schalit, I'm prepared for [Israel] to free them."
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