Visitation rights

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will oppose a bill that prevents Hamas prisoners from receiving visitors until Gilad Shalit is released, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Netanyahu's office said he opposes the bill pending the results of a committee headed by Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman that is setting new rules for handling prisoners in a more organized way, in coordination with the police, Prisons Service and the State Prosecutor's Office.

I'm usually pretty hard on Netanyahu, but he deserves credit here: He's going to take some political heat for opposing this bill, but he's making the right decision.

I understand why this bill is appealing to so many MKs. Hamas is violating international law by refusing to give the Red Cross access to Shalit; that's deplorable. But if we've learned one thing from decades of conflict in the Middle East, it's that these kinds of retaliatory measures are never effective. This bill won't force Hamas to free Shalit. Quite the opposite; it will probably scuttle the productive negotiations over Shalit's release.