Stop the Hamas slave trade

Hamas spokesman Ahmed Youssef says that if Israel releases Palestinians from Israeli jails, Hamas might reciprocate by releasing a video tape of kidnapped and illegally incarcerated Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit ('Hamas may release Schalit video tape if Israel frees women, children', Jerusalem Post, Monday 27 August).

Hopefully Israel will respond to the Hamas invite in kind, by agreeing to release video tapes of Palestinians held in Israeli jails – where they have full access to the International Red Cross and to legal representation. By contrast, Schalit still hasn’t been seen by a single living soul besides his terror organization captors, in violation of a whole raft of international conventions and legislation.

Hamas needs to be dragged out of its barbaric Middle Ages mindset into the 21st century and persuaded, by applying financial thumbscrews, that modern society does not condone abduction, human trafficking or the use of human beings for the purposes of barter – otherwise known in English as the slave trade. The international community’s most elementary tenets are being flouted by the terror organization at the same time as we continue to financially underwrite the society that spawns and nurtures this barbarity.