Michael Jackson was still dead and Sarah Palin was still resigning as Alaska’s governor Tuesday (July 7), but Gilad Shalit was persona non grata as far as most of the news media were concerned.

What’s so important about a Jew who is caged for three years by a mob of animals?

Shalit’s father, Noam, traveled to Geneva Monday to ask a United Nations committee for his son’s release, who is apparently being held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Not a word was reported in major American newspapers and other media outlets.

On Wednesday, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported in news briefs that the commission, which is investigating Israel’s raid on Gaza earlier this year, had completed its hearings without mentioning either Noam Shalit’s testimony or the testimony of victims of Hamas rocket attacks. Michael Jackson’s funeral service was covered in full and Sarah Palin‘s reasons to resign were psychoanalyzed ever deeper.

Gilad Shalit is the victim of a brazen act of war. Terrorists kidnapped him at an Israeli military base near the Gaza border and continues to keep him in captivity, since June 25, 2006.

This is not just about Gilad Shalit. What happened to him is an act of war against Israel. Shalit was seized while serving his country to protect Israel. If this can happen to Shalit, it can happen to any Israeli soldier and, for that matter, any Israeli and any Jew can be subject to harm. We are advocating for all Jews, not only Shalit.

Granted, Israel has limited options in securing the 22-year-old corporal’s release. Unless Israeli commanders know something the rest of us don’t, another Entebbe rescue would appear impossible. The military probably does not even know where Shalit is being held. Without inside information, Israel probably can do nothing on a military level.

Then there is the ransom demand. Hamas wants hundreds of prisoners for Shalit’s release, especially those who murdered Israelis. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is continuing his predecessor’s tack of indirect negotiations for a hostage exchange.

Many Israel supporters believe that engaging in a hostage exchange is insane. It would be a victory for terrorism. Hamas and other terror groups will try it again whenever they want prisoners back.

People fail to recognize that Israel is hardly playing Hamas’s game. It is called hardball. While Shalit remains in captivity, has anyone noticed that Israel persists in its willingness to seek a peace agreement for the territories; humanitarian supplies are still allowed to flow into Gaza on a limited basis; and Hamas continues to control all of Gaza?

Here are steps which Israel might still be able to take:

No decent person wants the people of Gaza to suffer, but Israel has been pushed into an us-or-them position. As Shalit languishes, presumably in Gaza, Israel is helping the people of Gaza by permitting a limited amount of humanitarian supplies to be sent there.

Why should Israel do anything to help Gaza when they refuse to release Shalit? Closing the border to Gaza, completely, would make conditions worse for Gaza, and it should. Innocent people may be hurt, but what did Shalit do? Consider also that many Gazans voted for Hamas and still back them because they support Hamas’s goal of destroying Israel.

Israel has a right to defer negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank because the Shalit kidnapping, and other forms of aggression, is a direct result of the Arab world’s hostility, past or present. Especially, had Yasser Arafat accepted Israel’s proposal for an independent state nearly a decade ago, would Shalit have even been vulnerable to his capture in 2006?

Interestingly, an incursion into Gaza without engaging in military conflict might be possible. During last January’s raid, the Israeli military cut Gaza in half in a relatively rural area between Gaza City and Rafah at the Egyptian border. It ended its advance without moving too deep into Gaza City, where Israeli commanders feared there could be many casualties.

I am under no delusion that these and other firm measures will lead to Shalit’s release. At best, perhaps the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority will clamor for Shalit’s release. The PA has supported negotiations with Hamas on Shalit, but UN officials who cry for the poor Gazans have not cried for Shalit.

Maybe the added pressures will make life so intolerable that the people will rise up in some form of protest.

If Hamas persists on holding onto Shalit, it will give new meaning to the term “Mexican standoff.”

President Obama was tested during the past few weeks on his Israeli policies and generally passed.

Obama is fully aware that he walks a diplomatic tightrope each time he participates in Middle East issues. Obama and his designated diplomats certainly stepped carefully, particularly when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Israel and its neighbors for the first time in her new capacity.

However, questions are raised over Clinton’s vague call for an expanded open border with Gaza; engagement with the Syrians; and the promise of $900,000 for Gaza and the West Bank. Also, Obama misstepped on his administration’s choice of Charles W. Freeman Jr. as chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

On the Republican side, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona exploited the Gaza war aftermath to play budget politics.

A Kyl/Obama Watch is fitting because many American Jews and other supporters of Israel question Obama’s commitment to Israel. The Republicans are not perfect, either, and Kyl gave us ammunition…not to mention a mercifully terse name…to represent his party and ideological pals on Middle East issues.

Clinton’s most disturbing statement, on March 4, opened the door for Israel to allow more than emergency aid to pass through the border into Gaza. She was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, “We want humanitarian aid to get into Gaza in sufficient amounts to alleviate the suffering of the people in Gaza.”

Most of us “want humanitarian aid to get into Gaza,” yet we also want Cpl. Gilad Shalit released after 33 months in captivity. The people of Gaza are lucky that Israel is allowing any aid at all to pass through the border. Shalit’s kidnapping and ongoing detention was an act of war, and Israel has every right to do whatever it deems necessary in seeking to retrieve Shalit. Why should Israel do anything for Gaza until Shalit returns?

And why didn’t Clinton mention that?

Israel and the United States may well benefit from talks with Syria as a result of Clinton’s announcement that two senior officials were sent to Syria to initiate talks with Syrian leaders. However, the natural price for any deals may be returning the Golan Heights to Syria. Would that be worth it? Many supporters of Israel do not think so.

That $900,000 - two-thirds for the West Bank and the rest for Gaza - presents the risk that Hamas might get its claws on some of that. It sounds like this money may never be used because Hamas will not consent to any conditions - namely, that they keep their hands off.

Freeman’s appointment was a blunder. I’m confused by the few Israel-related comments of his that I have read, but he already came with baggage that was heavy enough to abort his appointment.

On March 9, Sen. Kyl pressed for a vote on a amendment to Obama’s spending bill to prohibit any funds to relocate refugees from Gaza to America, the New York Times reported. Where did this come from? The bill never designated any money for that reason in the first place. The Times article noted that Kyl wanted to be certain and compel Democrats to vote on a sensitive issue.

Kyl also advocated for an amendment to prevent Gaza reconstruction money from being diverted to Hamas. Maybe it was helpful to make a point of that.

So far, no disastrous moves related to Israel on either side of the political divide. Let’s keep it that way.

If ever there was a case of the inmates taking over the asylum…

The Palestinian Health Ministry accused Hamas of seizing control of a psychiatric hospital in Gaza in recent weeks and evicting the patients to transform it into a prison for Fatah supporters, according to Israeli media reports.

Israel-based reporter David Bedein informed readers of The Bulletin, an emerging conservative daily newspaper in Philadelphia, that Hamas has established a new command headquarters in a building in the yard of the hospital.

Surprised? I sure am. No, I’m not surprised that Hamas seized a psychiatric hospital, but that Gaza would have a facility aimed at treating mental illness in a terrain where sanity is deviant behavior.

No question that the Jewish people alone, not to mention Westerners in general, can be a neurotic bunch. Many Jews are products of dsyfunctional families, but the mental health of Jews and other Westerners is exceptional when compared to the Arab world.

Not only is it ironic that Hamas’s leaders are now gathered in a facility to treat mental illness, but this move offered a brief window of opportunity to resolve relations between Israel and its hostile neighbors.

Very simply, their presence in a psychiatric hospital could have been an opportunity for the Hamas leaders themselves to get treatment. Unfortunately, Hamas kicked out the medical staff. In addition, I have to wonder if a psychiatric hospital in Gaza genuinely measures up to the standards expected of your average mental health facility.

Think of it. If the medical professionals are recalled to the hospital, they could sit down with the Hamas leaders one at a time and help them process - don’t you love that word? - their feelings about themselves as they apply to Israel.

Let’s take one issue - another loveable word - at a time with advice of a therapist:

Since this guy is receiving counseling, I wonder what the therapist would say about such internal cultural habits as honor killings and blood feuds.

Therapist: Oh, no. We cannot touch such issues. We have no right to make judgments about their cultural traditions. That would be…insensitive.