Hezb'allah Flotilla Founder to Shalit: Stop Occupying Gaza!

By Edward Olshaker

For anyone who's ever wondered why demonstrators are carrying signs demanding "End Israeli Occupation of Gaza" five years after the occupation ended, the sponsor of the Lebanese women's flotilla preparing to challenge the Gaza blockade might have provided a window into their mindset when he directed his rage at kidnap victim and "Gaza occupier" Cpl. Gilad Shalit..

Yasser Kashlak, a Palestinian Arab living in Syria who is funding the Hezb'allah-linked flotilla, has demanded, "Gilad Shalit should go back to Paris..."

In other words, "Get the hell out of Palestine." And to remove any doubt that he's stealing the intellectual property of a renowned journalist (and fellow Hezb'allah enthusiast), Kashlak added that Shalit's fellow Israelis should "go back to Poland."

Why would a supporter of the Palestinian cause shine a spotlight on a Hamas crime by bringing up Shalit? Why single him out and demand his expulsion? It appears to be because in their alternative world, Shalit is somehow the guilty party, a trespasser living where he has no right to live. If ordering him to leave sounds like a sick joke, it's no more grotesquely insane than depicting a heavily armed al Qaeda-linked lynch mob as unarmed civilian humanitarians -- a hallucinatory narrative promoted by Islamic extremists and embraced by America's radical Left.

Shalit, a dual Israeli-French citizen, would surely rejoice if officially ordered to end his occupation of Gaza and "go back to Paris," but unfortunately there's a catch. In the same sentence, Kashlak says, "...and after that we will chase [him and other Israelis] until the ends of the earth..."

With these words, the sponsor of the Lebanese Hezb'allah flotilla has unintentionally yet persuasively reminded the world of the need for a Jewish homeland.

Shalit was 19 years old when taken hostage, and is 23 today -- nearly one-fifth of his life as a captive of terrorists. As the Israeli government prepares to allow cement into Gaza, why aren't they demanding the release of Shalit in exchange for the cement? By failing to take this rare opportunity to pressure Hamas for his return, what leverage is left?