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The Jewish state is experiencing mixed feelings today.

In Israel today there is elation at the return of Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped from Israel at age 19 and held in indescribably inhumane conditions for five years by Islamist terror organisation Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

For five long years after his illegal abduction from inside Israel he was held without visits by the Red Cross, or Amnesty International, or EU representatives (Shalit holds dual Israeli and French (=EU) citizenship), or UN staffers. Meantime the Red Cross, Amnesty International, EU and UN have poured in billions of dollars into the Gaza Strip even as Shalit’s most fundamental human rights were being violated. These august bodies justified their extraordinary generosity by claiming that the human rights of the Gaza Arabs are inviolable.

Gilad Shalit’s human rights, however, were not even on their agenda.

Go figure.

In Israel today there is also pain, suffering, worry, rage even, over the release of 1027 convicted terrorists, murderers and mass-murderers in exchange for the life of Gilad Shalit. The decision to release these terrorists, some just in their teens, has sparked considerable controversy in the Jewish state. While everyone agrees that Shalit’s life is worth saving at any cost, many also feel that “any cost” automatically means that more Israelis will now be kidnapped by Islamist terrorists – and indeed Hamas openly admit that they will do just that. “Any cost” is felt to be a cost too high. Not for the release of Gilad Shalit, but for the precedent it will set for future terrorist activity.

A lot of nonsense is appearing in the press about the unacceptability of Israel incarcerating terrorist teenagers in jail. As though age is an automatic get-out-of-jail ticket in a pleasant game of Monopoly. If you use a bomb, a gun or a rock to kill innocent civilians in some misguided Jihadi-inspired determination to drive your own peculiar political and religious agenda, you are a terrorist. End of story. A bomb is a lethal weapon. So is a gun. So is a stone.

A “stone”? We’re not talking shiny pebbles to decorate the sandcastle you’re building with your toddlers at the seaside, we’re talking rocks and boulders. Lethal weapons when they hit the soft, unprotected tissue of a human body – or skull. Stones, rocks, boulders – call them what you will, they are being used to kill. By Arab teenagers who cannot afford their weapon of choice, a gun or a bomb. The age of the terrorist – whose actions are fuelled by religious bigotry and evilly racist anti-Semitic diatribe broadcast from mosque, radio, TV set and classroom – is utterly irrelevant. If you kill or deliberately intend to kill for political and/or religious gain, be prepared for your punishment, whether you are a teenage racist, middle-aged Jihadi or septuagenarian anti-Semite.

So enough of the excuses. A terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist – irrespective of age, gender, religion or nationality. Do the crime and pay the price.

Tuesday the 18^th of October 2011 in Israel – a day of elation, sorrow, regret and concern for the future in equal measure.

But above all a day of joy for the safe return of Gilad Shalit. Abducted from Israel at age 19, returned home at age 25 after a terrible price was paid – in terms of his long years of suffering and the freed terrorists who will now be pumped back into the Jihadi system.

Thank you Red Cross, thank you Amnesty International, thank you UN and EU. Democrats, people of principle and law-abiding citizens the world over know what you represent: nothing, absolutely nothing.

Apart from the massive salaries you take home every month – financed by the taxes paid by democrats, people of principle and law-abiding citizens the world over.

Makes you think, doesn’t it?