Israel releases Palestinian prisoners: a life sentence for victims

Prepare for round three. Just one month after 398 Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli jails, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon has agreed to release 20 more, according to accounts of last week's rendezvous with Mahmoud Abbas. This may not be a significant number, but as the first release of prisoners with "blood on their hands" it would set a radically new precedent.

When the 398 were let loose in May, and before them a further 500 in February, the Israeli authorities assured their public that none had been convicted of acts of murder. This time we are being placated with a different tranquiliser: all the murderers, it is said, are "frail, veteran prisoners".

The impending release, like those before it, is being sold as an "unavoidable" concession. But is it? No one even seems to be asking.

I am a bereaved mother. My daughter, 15-years-old, was murdered in the Sbarro restaurant bombing in August 2001, along with 14 other innocent civilians. While her murderer suicided in the attack, his female accomplice, a Jordanian-born media student at a West Bank university, is currently serving a 320-year jail sentence in Israel. Twenty of those years are for the life of my daughter. Four years after the massacre, my pain is as fresh as the day it happened so I do not expect 20 years to dull it in the least. I fairly choke when I hear the words: "We have no choice." And I ask: "Why in the world not?"

Israel's prisoner release policy demands much closer scrutiny than it is getting.

A former head of the prison service recently wrote in optimistic terms about this issue. In a newspaper article, Lieutenant-General (Ret.) Orit Adato compared our conflict with that of Britain and Northern Ireland. She conceded, "Some of the prisoners freed in the past returned to the path of terrorism, having left jail more extreme and better equipped ideologically and 'professionally'". Yet, she asserted, without the release of “political” prisoners, "the Irish peace agreement would probably not have emerged". She saw, "parallels between what has happened in Ireland and (the) Israeli-Palestinian experience," and maintained that we can learn much from the Irish experience.

But a close look at the release of the IRA terrorists reveals that it was subject to many pre-requisites. It was part of a multi-component, comprehensive agreement. The entire plan went to a public referendum and was approved there, and only then was put into effect by legislation. The releases were explicitly limited to members of organisations that maintained an unequivocal ceasefire. And the majority of those prisoners were due to be released anyway in the following 24 months.

Not a trace of these factors is present in Israel's case.

Adato's description of the Irish experience led her to this starry-eyed view of how it would work in our part of the world:

“One aspect would be a public statement by the Palestinian leadership, taking responsibility for the release process and for formulating a plan for supervision and rehabilitation of released prisoners", with "parole-officer type of supervision and a study and vocational training program", and "a public appeal by the PA leadership to prisoner leaders in the jails to openly declare their intention of moving from armed struggle and attempts to launch terrorist attacks".

Here we lose Adato to the realm of fantasy. Her scenario is certainly enticing. But making far-reaching decisions like prisoner releases based on such dreams is fraught with danger.

Back in the real world, the Palestinian Authority is holding on to power by its fingernails. Its appeals to other terror factions to adhere to the ceasefire are repeatedly rejected. Nothing even faintly resembling disarmament of the terrorists has been initiated by the PA. The overtly-terrorist organisation, Hamas, is currently so far ahead in the opinion polls that the PA has indefinitely postponed the July parliamentary elections.

In this chilling climate, the chances that the Palestinian Authority will perform the role Adato envisioned for it are slim to nil. The realistic expectation is that “rehabilitation” will be handled by the terror organisations that sponsored and nurtured these prisoners all along. And it will involve plenty of re-training and re-arming.

Recidivism, however, is not the only real and immediate risk that should concern us. Every aspiring terrorist-in-training now understands the new rules of the game. Israel, which has long refrained from imposing the death penalty, has now removed the one meaningful deterrent in their path: extended prison terms. How much time will the perpetrators of next month's terrorist bombing spend in Israeli prison before their early exodus?

Is there really no option but to continue down the slippery-slide of reckless releases? How concerned are Israel's ministers (protected by 24-hour armed security themselves) by the danger they are inflicting on the public? Do these releases achieve a payoff? And if yes, then will someone please tell us what it is? After the release of the 398, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said: "We have to concentrate all our efforts to see all our prisoners to be free and released." Palestinian Minister of Prisoner Affairs, Sofian Abu Zaydeh, declared: "If this step was aimed at strengthening President Mahmoud Abbas, then it is not enough." Agence France Press reported the Palestinians want all the terrorists released, including the murderers responsible for the bloodiest massacres.

With each release, Palestinian demands for the release of all 7,000 prisoners grow more insistent and that admirable Irish model grows less relevant. If the pay-off Israel expected is an appreciative and co-operative PA, it is clear they were way off the mark.

The prison service's Amato referred to the "understandable sensitivity to early release on the part of the families of victims of Palestinian terrorism". And Voice of America, commenting on last month's release, observed that such decisions "are not popular in Israel where most people have family or friends who were killed or wounded in terrorist attacks".

Those are accurate assessments. Thousands of Israelis have experienced the death and maiming of loved ones at the hands of the Palestinians, and nearly everyone else here knows someone who has. Nevertheless, the public has been nearly mute. A terror-victim support organisation, Almagor, lodged urgent last-minute appeals to the High Court of Justice hours before Israel handed over the prisoners. They were rejected both times. So the releases have been steam-rolling ahead without a hitch.

Perhaps if we ponder how the 900 recently released convicts are now spending their days, a sense of urgency will replace our calm. Of course, it will be tempting to fantasise that they have been miraculously transformed into moral human beings. But it is not too late to face the bitter truth: releasing the 900 was a mistake. Let's not allow our leaders to compound it any further.