By JPOST.COM STAFF
The brother-in-law of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has called on him to quit rather than agree to the release of terrorists in exchange for captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.
"Such a deal will lead to a vicious wave of terror," Dr. Hagi Ben-Artzi told Army Radio on Monday, claiming that when Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was freed in a prisoner swap deal, it led to the second intifada.
"The results are very clear," he said, "and I say this out of a great love for Bibi, and call on him not to take responsibility for the possible deaths of hundreds or thousands of Israelis."
Ben-Artzi said that Netanyahu would be going against his own principles and the ideals he himself had preached, were he to sign such a deal.
"It will be a huge boost for terror, and it will bring big waves of attacks, as he himself has written in his books," he said. "If he signs the deal, it will prove he has no spine."
"He, more than anyone else, preached for 30 years a policy of fighting terror and opposing surrendering to terror," he continued, adding that in one of the premier's books, "Fighting Terror," he dedicated a whole chapter to the issue, and said that as a future leader, he would not free terrorists.