27-Jul-13: Aghast

Times of Israel has the announcement

The country is reacting tonight to the announcement, made official via a letter of the prime minister, that 

Israel has reluctantly agreed to release all 100-plus Palestinian prisoners held since before the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night issued an open letter to the public, bracing Israelis for an extremely “difficult decision” that he was taking in defiance of public opinion but “for the good of the country.”

Our views of politicians in general make it exceedingly difficult to accept a politicians' statement that this decision or that is "for the good of the country" even while he acknowledges that the citizens who empowered him see matters differently.

We are the parents of a beautiful child whose death by hideous murder we remember today on its twelfth anniversary. All of the murder plotters (with the exception of one of them) are walking free today by consent of our government. This, despite our efforts over years to speak against the government of Israel's decision to enable this.

We are left aghast one more time at the judgment behind decisions like tonight's; at the hubris and the insensitivity of how it has been done (again). Aghast at the idea that we are consenting to allow savages to go back to the societies that spawned them where, for a certainty, they will be received as heroes.

Does this bring us closer to peace? Is anyone brave enough - foolish enough - to look us in the eye and say "yes"?

Meanwhile the damage that flows from the prime minister's decision, once executed, is permanent and irreversible. And that's before we begin to assess what it does to fundamental notions of justice.