Israel Matzav: Cleansing bloody 'Palestinian' hands

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Cleansing bloody 'Palestinian' hands

Maariv reports (link in Hebrew) that the Olmert-Barak-Livni government is looking into changing the definition of 'blood on their hands' in order to allow greater flexibility in freeing 'Palestinian' ~~prisoners~~ terrorists in the lead up to the Annapolis ~~conference~~ mugging. Here's a translation of the article:

The defense establishment is currently examining an explicit request from the political echelon to redefine "blood on their hands," in a manner that will permit freeing prisoners who were convicted of serious crimes, in the context of the unilateral concessions to be made to the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen, at the Annapolis conference.

A defense source noted that the request is being considered positively in order to permit the government to expand the basket of unilateral concessions to Abu Mazen in the lead-up to the upcoming diplomatic summit. At the end of the defense establishment's work, a recommendation will be delivered with new definitions of the concept, and this will permit the government to free prisoners who are defined today as having blood on their hands.

Simultaneously, the defense ministry intends to present plans to redeploy the IDF's roadblocks in Judea and Samaria in a manner that will permit the IDF to remove a number of roadblocks as part of the unilateral concessions. The series of unilateral concessions will be made in order to compensate the Palestinians for not succeeding in attaining all of their goals from the summit that is scheduled to take place at the end of the month.

According to a senior diplomatic source, "The Palestinians understand that Israel will not come to Annapolis and announce immediate concessions [here the Hebrew word used is "vitur" which implies a more permanent and ongoing type of concession than the term "mechva" used in the previous paragraphs that implies one-time, unilateral concessions. CiJ] and that the very establishment of a Palestinian state is conditioned upon dismantling the terror infrastructure, as is required by Phase 1 of the road map." He added that, "on the other hand, Abu Mazen is being strengthened by unilateral concessions that prove to the Palestinian public that the peace process is the only way to reach gains against Israel."

"In any event, Israel will not release murderers, nor persons who directly assisted in committing murder," added the senior defense source. "There are many prisoners in the jails, approximately ten thousand, and of those only 4000 are defined today as those with 'blood on their hands.'" [Then why the need for a new definition? CiJ]

Last week, it was disclosed that American Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has been pressuring senior statesmen in Israel for a number of weeks to make an additional prisoner release on Abu Mazen's behalf. Last summer, Israel released approximately three hundred and fifty Fatah terrorists from the jails, and tens of terrorists received "amnesty" by being removed from the list of wanted persons maintained by the General Security Service.

Similarly, it was disclosed that in the IDF's intelligence branch the assessment is that the conference will not succeed, and they are very pessimistic in all that relates to its success. In the IDF and the defense establishment, they claim that in light of the experience of the past, it is forbidden to agree in any manner to the Palestinians' demand to transfer full security responsibility to them for the cities in Judea and Samaria.

In the defense establishment they note that each time that Israel transferred full security responsibility to the Authority's police, it led to terror attacks that were orchestrated from the area that was handed over.