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Secret Israel-Hamas Channel Freed Gilad Shalit

In a new book, Israeli academic Gershon Baskin reveals the back channel he established with Hamas that led to the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Recently-freed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit leaves after meeting with Christophe Bigot, the French ambassador to Israel (not pictured) at the French embassy in Tel Aviv January 11, 2012. During the meeting, Shalit gave the ambassador a letter addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Shalit returned home in October 2011 in a thousand-for-one prisoner swap which ended his five years of captivity in the Gaza Strip. REUTERS/Jack Guez/Pool (ISRAEL - Tags: POLITICS) - RTR2W5D2
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Gershon Baskin’s Freeing Gilad: The Secret Back Channel was recently published by Kinneret Zmora-Bitan.

“It is the greatest thing I have done in my entire life. I have no doubt about that,” wrote Baskin at the beginning of his book. And, indeed, he did it against all odds and despite the heavy dose of skepticism and ridicule from those who led the negotiations on behalf of the government except for one person — former Mossad agent David Meidan, who was able to recognize the benefit a person like Baskin could provide and worked with him until the moment that abducted soldier Gilad Shalit stepped foot on Israeli soil, on Oct. 18, 2011. “Thank you for being an insufferable nag,” Meidan wrote in a thank you letter sent to him after the deal was done.

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