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Palestinian prisoner release causes Israeli political stir
[Al Ahram] A planned release of 26 Paleostinian prisoners has provoked feuding within Israel's governing coalition, already under strain from U.S.-brokered peace talks.The inmates, all of whom were convicted of murder in the killing of Israelis before or just after the first interim Israeli-Paleostinian peace accords were signed 20 years ago, were due to go free after midnight on Tuesday. Cutting short their life sentences has been particularly grating for many Israelis because prisoner releases were a Paleostinian condition for reviving peace talks last August that few people on either side of the conflict believe will succeed. In all, 104 long-serving prisoners will go free. A first group of 26 was let out two months ago in keeping with understandings reached during shuttle diplomacy by U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... "The release of hard boyz in return for (Israeli chief negotiator) Tzipi Livni's dubious right to meet (Paleostinian counterpart Saeb) Erekat is very grave," the Jewish Home party, a far-right member of the government, said in statement at the weekend. Jewish Home, led by Naftali Bennett, then tried to get a proposal to freeze further prisoner releases past a ministerial committee, where members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party voted it down on Sunday. "The picture is now clear: the government, unlike one of its member-parties, is acting in the national interest...this government is moving the grinding of the peace processor forward," Livni, head of the small, centrist Hatnuah party, wrote on her Facebook page after Jewish Home's proposed law was rejected. The squabbling did not end there. Bennett criticised Likud ministers, saying: "The release of hard boyz is immoral, it weakens Israel and endangers its citizens, and we will continue to fight it in a democratic way". Posted by: Fred 2013-10-30 |
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