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What is the State Department’s attitude to governments freeing prisoners who have murdered US citizens? The answer might surprise you.
The question is neither rhetorical nor theoretical in our part of the world. There have been several rounds of prisoner releases to which Israel has been party. Two years ago, 1,027 terrorists, the majority of them killers, walked free as the price negotiated by Israel for the release of a hostage, Gilad Shalit. The writers of this blog were outraged by the inclusion of the murderer of our US-citizen daughter Malki among them. That woman should never have been in the list. We argued forcefully, via a grassroots campaign, that she ought to have been removed from it, and in 3 days we gathered nearly ten thousand signatures of people as outraged as we who agreed. But we failed and the fears and predictions we expressed in scores of interviews and articles about the freed murderer have come true.
The most recent mass release of imprisoned terrorists took place this past Tuesday night, August 13, 2013. A first cluster of 26 convicted murderers was set loose and dispatched to Gaza and Ramallah around midnight. This was principally about political showmanship, so it was not surprising to see the PA working energetically to frame the eleven terrorists who lived in its jurisdiction as heroes and great men. Hamas by contrast downplayed the whole thing; the 15 headed for Gaza were sent directly to their homes. Since there was no political dividend in this for Hamas, their response was predictable.
This was tranche number one. Three more are coming, depending – Israeli official channels have said – on how well the peace talks go. In all, the go-free list this time amounts to 104 men. With 26 now on the loose, 78 more are waiting in line. One of the 26 is the convicted killer of a US citizen. How the US viewed his undeserved freedom makes for some unsettling observations.
(Continue )
