Would America ever release 9/11 terrorists? Then why ask the same from Israel?

A great piece from Jonathan Tobin.

As I wrote last week, unlike the mass release of prisoners in order to ransom prisoners like kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, which is defensible, it is hard to justify Netanyahu’s decision from an Israeli point of view. But it should be remembered that as much as Israel could have said no to Kerry, this is an outrageous Palestinian demand that was championed by the United States. That means Americans should pause and wonder whether they would ever give a moment’s consideration to doing what their government is twisting Israel’s arm to do. Would we ever think of releasing any of those convicted and currently serving long jail sentences for involvement in the 9/11 attacks or any other terrorist assault on the United States and its citizens? Not a chance.

That’s a point that is never raised in the news accounts of Kerry’s negotiations or even posed to the secretary when he deigns to be questioned by a diplomatic press corps that has given him kid-glove treatment. Yet why not?

The fact is the United States would never consider such a request for a minute, no matter the diplomatic gains to be garnered from that sort of concession elsewhere in the globe. The American position is, as the Obama administration likes to put it, that anyone who attacks U.S. citizens will be chased down to the ends of the earth and either be snuffed by a drone attack that has the personal approval of the commander in chief or be locked away for good if they are captured.

Imagine the response from the 9/11 families or the survivors of any terror attack to the suggestion that the killers of their relatives be released. Would it be much different than those of Israelis as reported by the New York Times?

On Friday, Yediot Aharonot, an Israeli newspaper, published an impassioned open letter to Mr. Netanyahu from Abie Moses, whose pregnant wife and 5-year-old son, Tal, were fatally burned in a firebomb attack on their car in April 1987. Mr. Moses said that faced with the likely release of their killer, Mohammad Adel Hassin Daoud, “the wounds have reopened; the memories, which we live with on a daily basis, turn into physical pain, in addition to the emotional pain of coping daily with the nightmare.”

Yet Kerry ignores this pain even as he gleefully pushes Netanyahu to make his photo-op possible. Perhaps a true peace that ended the conflict with the Palestinians and the Muslim and Arab world might be worth such a sacrifice. But given the reluctance of the Palestinians to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn and the split between the supposed moderates of Fatah that will negotiate and the Hamas rulers of Gaza that will not, the chance of that happening is virtually zero.

Read the whole thing.