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If you’re wondering why Israel agreed to exchange more than 1,000 prisoners for the kidnapped Gilad Shalit, Haaretz’s Bradley Burston has a compelling explanation: they had a promise to keep. An overwhelming majority of Israel’s population has crusaded and marched for the release of Shalit, and for any deal to bring him home. They lobbied Netanyahu and supported his deal. The exchange is almost shocking in its danger: thousands of terrorists will be released boasting of the future violence they will commit. “The deal is a remnant of an Israel which is fast disappearing … a remnant of a promised land that—to those everyday people who donate their very youth, their very lives, in order to defend it—still believes it important to keep its promises.”