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| Murderers triumphant [Image Source] |
Eli Lake, writing for the Daily Beast today, interviews Arnold Roth in the course of a close and critical look at last night's opening of the peace process season: round one of the mass release of convicted Palestinian Arab murderers and terrorists. All of them, no surprise, received a triumphant welcome on returning to the bosom of the two Palestinian Arab statelets, embraced by their political leaders and by jouous, vengeance driven rank-and-file.
And if you're holding your breath to hear Arabic-language words of caution and condemnation decrying the festivities, the disgraceful way in which cowardly knife-men and thuggish shooters of elderly Jews have been put on pedestals, look elsewhere. But remind yourself, as the Secretary of State of the US has been doing: this is how peace is made. Believe him, and ignore your lying eyes.
Palestinian Prisoners Released on the Eve
of Peace Talks
Plotting suicide bombings, throwing grenades, killing a
Holocaust survivor—these were among the crimes of the 26 prisoners Israel
released Tuesday to bring the Palestinians to the negotiating table. Eli Lake
reports.
Call it the dark side of the peace process. Just hours before
the start of new negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians on Wednesday, Israel released 26 prisoners its
courts had convicted of murder or accessory to murder.
The prisoners were freed as an inducement for the president of
the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to participate in the peace talks.
Since 2009, Abbas has said he would participate in negotiations only if Israel
stopped settlement activity after President Obama imposed the condition on
Israel in the first year of his first term. But Abbas has moderated his
position at the behest of Secretary of State John Kerry, who has made restarting the peace process
a high priority. The moderation of Abbas was tested this week after
Israel announced new housing construction in some West Bank settlements.
Palestinian negotiators have said they expect Israel to release
104 prisoners. Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator, told Israeli
Arabic-language radio on Tuesday, “We hope to put into effect
what we’ve agreed on...we hope for the release of 104 prisoners. Each will
return to his house. This is what we’ve agreed on.” He added, “There is a clear
understanding between us and the Americans and Israelis. Any change [in that] will
mean the agreement is off the table.”
While
Israel holds thousands of Palestinians in prison, some for small offenses such
as throwing rocks, the prisoners released Tuesday evening were convicted of
more serious crimes. Among the released are Palestinians who have plotted
suicide bombing attacks, thrown grenades at checkpoints, and committed murder,
according to documents published by the Jerusalem
Post. One of them, 40-year-old Atiyeh Salem Abu Musa, was jailed
in 1994 for hacking a Holocaust survivor to death with an ax.
Some families of victims of prisoners who have been released in
the past are now seeking a meeting with Kerry to explain to him what they see
as the dangers of pressuring Israel to release to release Palestinians from
prison.
“We don’t see this as a step towards peace,” Arnold Roth, one of
the Israelis who helped organize a letter to the secretary of state, told The
Daily Beast. “The objection is to the madness of positing the peace process on
the prior release of murderers. We support a peace process.”
Roth has some experience with the pain of seeing the killer of a
loved one go free. His daughter, Malki, was killed in Aug. 9, 2001, in the
bombing of a Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem. One of the planners of that
attack, Ahlam Tamimi, who also broadcast the bombing for Palestinian television
from Ramallah, walked free from multiple life sentences in 2011. Tamimi was one
of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners freed in exchange for Gilad Shalit, the Israel
Defense Forces corporal who was abducted in 2006 by Hamas in a cross-border
raid. Roth, who is still mourning the death of his 15-year-old daughter, said
Tamimi has since married and is now pregnant with a child of her own.
Roth signed a letter sent Tuesday to Kerry asking him for a
meeting. “Meet with us,” wrote Roth and 16 other family members of victims.
“Let us explain why being complicit in turning the killers of our children into
heroes and ‘freedom fighters’ must not be part of any policy befitting a great
nation and moral exemplar like the United States.”
Kerry and other State
Department officials have kept largely quiet on the behind-the-scenes
dealmaking needed to bring the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table.
A State Department spokeswoman on Tuesday declined to call the prisoners
scheduled for release “terrorists” when asked.
Marie Harf, deputy spokeswoman for the State Department, told
The Daily Beast, “We’ve received the letter today, and we’re reviewing it.” She
also said Kerry “respects the exclusive right of the Israeli government to make
these decisions.” But Harf stressed that Israel alone made the decision to release the prisoners.
“The decision to release these prisoners was taken by Israel
only after the most serious review, at the highest levels of the Israeli
government,” she said. “Prime Minister Netanyahu made a tough decision that he
determined was in the best interests of the Israeli people.”
Said Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force
on Palestine: “Some of the people who have been released clearly did some
bloody deeds. Some of the people who are being released are now old, some are
affiliated with organizations that are not functional.”
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