I have always believed that if you negotiate with kidnappers and terrorists then you are asking for trouble. You are guaranteeing that there will be more kidnappings in the future and you are encouraging further acts of terrorism.

The Spaniards, the Italians and the French always hand over tons of cash for their citizens and when this occurs I am disgusted by it. Even if the hostages are handed over alive it’s still a bad precedent.

But when you are Israeli or Jewish and the Arabs get you, then you can be certain that you will be killed immediately. I cannot imagine that the Israelis believed for a minute that the two kidnapped soldiers would be handed back intact, the way that a very hale and hearty Samir Quntar looked when he was returned to the Lebanese.

In my humble opinion, a vicious animal like Samir Quntar should not have been returned to the Lebanese. He should not have been kept alive in Israel just to be exchanged for a pile of bones. It was very expensive to keep him in gaol for all those years and he certainly does not deserve to walk the face of the Earth ever again

Did the Israelis think that they would lead by example and show Hezbollah how prisoners should be treated? How can anyone even compare a civilised nation like Israel with a bunch of Muslim fanatics who think nothing of sending young children to blow themselves up?

So what would I have done if I had been the political leader in Israel? First of all, I would tell soldiers that if they get captured they will definitely be murdered by the Arabs. They should accept that they will not be kept alive and their families have to expect that capture by Arabs means that their sons or daughters have been killed in action.

This is the price of war.

Israel is at war with these terrorists and it’s no use pretending that things are different. There can be thousands of conferences and imaginary roadmaps to peace but until the enemies of Israel accept the fact that Israel has the right to exist as a nation in the Middle East, nothing will come of it. As for returning live prisoners to the enemies of Israel for skeletal remains, it simply doesn’t make sense.