Nice :) Welcome back Gilad !

I'm happy this story has finally come to a good end. However, this should not distract us from the fact that most captured soldiers do not return alive, so is Gilad the first one since 26 years!

It's good he is being released but the price seems high.

It's not a wiki, it's a blog : he can do whatever he wants with it. At least he doesn't lie about it.

Censorship applies only to government action. If Ayende decided that left handed people would be blocked, that is his right. This blog is a private space owned by a private individual. To say all posts should be allowed is the same as saying anyone can put a sign in his front yard.

I thought you'll be happy about the discount...

I don't think Ayende would block reasonable debate. The warning is probably a courtesy to save the time of anybody about to write something mindlessly offensive.

Jamie,

Say politely "Thank you", get the discount if you want, and move the hell on. You obviously don't understand the saying about single individuals' life in Israeli context.

@Bobonymous: he can do what he wants, but that doesn't mean he's always correct, and doesn't mean i don't have the right (or, at least, the possibility) to say something about it. I said what i said beacause even if i don't personally know Oren, i respect him as a person for how i know him on the intertubes. Oh, and btw: i think i'm not offending anyone and i'm not saying anithing harsh.

@oren: sorry to see my comment removed, i think it wasn't harsh or offensive, and i didn't even touched the specific subject, which i don't know very well and which you for sure know better than me. It was just a generic concept.

@Kevdog: in my house, i have the right to not let black people in, but that doesn't mean you don't have the freedom to say i'm stupid :-) . Oh, and just to be very clear: i'm not saying in any way that Oren is stupid or something, i can understand he is very sensible to the subject matter.

I'm happy to see him released, I just hope they don't expect that sort of exchange rate for all captured IDF soldiers.

I like that you have the balls to censor all those stupid political comments.

Thanks for having the guts to stand up for what is right.

@njy My only point is that this is not a freedom of speech issue. You can call whomever you like stupid. People do not have an explicit right to post here, quite the contrary. Whether it is smart or not to edit is another matter entirely.

People often mistake privileges and courtesies as rights.

@Tom

I have a theory that this is actually a good price to pay. IIRC, Israel is a conscript army. By that definition, you are going to have a subset of people in the armed forces who do not want to be there. How do you keep such people motivated? By letting them know that they will not be forgotten, that their country will do whatever it takes to get them back.

For those who read Starship Troopers, this argument will be very familiar.

@KevDog: if you read my comment i didn't say "you're stupid", or "you can't" or something like that. I don't remember the exact words, but i was just saying it didn't seemed right to me, and since i respect Oren, and i know this is a difficult argument to talk about (moreover on the internet), i was just saying my point. Can i say something like that or is it hurting anyone? Censoring offenses like "Gilad is this" or "Gilad is that" or "you guys from Xxx country are all whatever" may be ok, but censoring someone just because "i do not agree with you" didn't felt - to me - like something that could come from a guy such as Oren, which i think is a lot open minded in other areas and generally a nice guy from what i know. I hope to have clarified my point of view.

@Tom Dietrich - this is the usual price of Israeli soldiers. Sometimes the price is similar for getting back the bodies of Israeli soldiers to be properly buried.

Very happy to hear Shalit is back home. I guess Hamas and Israel can agree on one thing: 1 Israeli > 400+ Hamas fundamentalists.

@njy Again, censorship is a government action. Private individuals edit, governments censor.

@KevDog: again, I've not said he cannot do this, or that it is not acceptable. I just said it didn't feel right to me to remove comments only because - and i quote - "I don't agree with". If a comment is offensive or defamatory or discriminatory, than it makes sense to remove it. If it's just "i do not agree with your opinion", it didn't feel right to me. If he closed the comments altogether to avoid idiotic comments, that would have made sense. If he would've said to delete offensive/racists/whatever comments, it would've made sense. But just because he didn't agree with it, it... it just feels not right to me. And i've tried - politely - to say it.

Now it's obvious he is free to remove everything he wants, this is his blog and he can do it, sure: it's private property, man.

Having said that, i think i made my point clear, and i do not intend to go and on again.

I hope Oren got it: if he agrees with my reasoning, good. If he does not agree, good nonetheless.

@Judah Israel has a 'voluntary' army, so it's very important for Israel to protect all it's soldiers. And when a soldier is captured, it's important to that soldier to known his country will do (almost) anything to get him back even as Israel (like most countries) officially don't negotiate with terrorists.

And for those who think the road to piece talks are open forget that Hamas only representents a medium group at the West-bank. The official representative party is the Fatwa and it's premier is Abbas.

Although I really hope that piece talks will follow, I'm afraid that the damage on both sides is too big and the conflict exists for too long. Whole generations (on both sides) grew up with extreme violence, so the anger towards each other is very deep rooted. It's a process that will take generations to solve.

@Galid: Welcome home!