That Israel has agreed to accept a list of Palestinian prisoners which the new national unity government wants freed in exchange for an Israeli soldier does not mean that a prisoners swap is imminent. The release of a significant number of Palestinian prisoners, even in exchange for an Israeli soldier, will further reduce Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s political standing, especially among his right-wing political and ideological allies as well as among the many right-leaning Israeli public. Indeed, the government must be apprehensive about the psychological impact of freeing hundreds of Palestinians, including many who are leaders, since that would constitute a moral victory for the Palestinians. However, the Olmert government is reportedly in the process of creating new criteria for pardoning Palestinian prisoners, the most significant being the readiness to release Palestinians “with Jewish blood on their hands” — Palestinian resistance fighters found guilty of killing Israeli occupation soldiers, settlers or civilians. This would be the first time Israel has even contemplated releasing Palestinians who have killed Israelis. If it is true, it will be a significant change by Israel which originally opposed the swapping of their soldier Gilad Shalit for Palestinian prisoners.
When it decided such a trade-off might have political dividends, Israel then gradually heightened the level of prisoner importance, from freeing prisoners of their choice, to women and children, to detainees such as workers in Israel without entry permits and petty criminals, to apolitical prisoners, then on to prominent political and resistance leaders affiliated with Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). These could include imprisoned Hamas leader Hassan Youssef, Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti and PFLP Secretary-General Ahmed Saadat. Now, the freeing of Palestinians might include even those jailed for killing.
Granting freedom to a large number of imprisoned nationalist, Islamic leaders and Palestinians who have killed Israelis could seal the fate of the Kadima government, whose popularity has been steadily falling. In such a situation, Olmert is likely to act as a tough negotiator in the hope of extracting a more palatable deal from the unity government. He could conceivably resort to publicly agreeing to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners while secretly planning to re-arrest many of them — on newly concocted charges — after Shalit’s release. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also cannot afford to be seen as capitulating when he is answerable to the families of thousands of Palestinian prisoners who have been held in Israeli jails for over 20 years, some with virtually no chance of being freed. Abbas’ failure to deliver on his promise that Hamas would release Shalit before the formation of a unity government has simultaneously prevented a potential swap with hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Israel takes seriously the issue of its soldiers held by the Palestinians. It also places on its list of reasons for opposing final status negotiations the holding of Shalit. It is of course long overdue that Israel should show at least some of the same concern for the thousands of Palestinians it has imprisoned, many of them illegally. There will be no true peace without their release.
