Israel moves to release 200 inmates

Analyst says move may do little for Olmert because most were jailed on minor offences and were likely to be out in several months

Palestinian women hold pictures of prisoners held in Israeli jails during a protest calling for their release yesterday in Gaza City.

Ramallah // An Israeli ministerial committee yesterday approved a list of 200 Palestinian prisoners to be released in what is being billed as a goodwill gesture to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

A statement after a cabinet meeting on Sunday, at which the release was agreed, said the move came to "demonstrate that the release of prisoners can be achieved through talks and not through violence and the kidnapping of soldiers". Israel has been criticised for only releasing prisoners when forced to, specifically to such groups as Hizbollah that have managed to capture Israeli soldiers. Last month, Israel released five Lebanese prisoners and nearly 200 bodies to Hizbollah in return for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers captured at the outset of the Lebanon war in 2006.

It is, according to Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian Authority minister of planning, a "behaviour that encourages extremism and discourages Palestinian moderates". The mooted release to the Palestinian Authority, scheduled for Monday, before the month of Ramadan, is unlikely to dispel such criticism. Although two prisoners on the list are serving life sentences, most, according to a report in an Israeli newspaper yesterday, are being held for relatively minor offences, mostly criminal charges, and were due to be released in a couple of months anyway.

As such, the stated purpose for the release, to boost Mr Abbas, is likely to backfire, Mr Khatib said. "This is something the president has been asking for and has been promised. If it ends up being a release of people who are going to be released anyway, it will simply embarrass Abu Mazen [Mr Abbas]," Mr Khatib said. "I think it will be received in a negative way." Mr Abbas's office welcomed the release, but said in a statement that "it was a step in the right direction" even if it had hoped to see more freed.

Israel holds about 10,000 Palestinians in its jails, and the issue is an emotive one for Palestinians, who see most of those prisoners, not including those held for petty crimes, as political detainees. Indeed, so prevalent is the experience of arrest among generations of Palestinians that in the first intifada, Israeli prisons were popularly known as Palestinian universities because it was there that young Palestinians educated themselves.

In Israel, meanwhile, there were also several notable objections to the release. Shaul Mofaz, a Kadima leadership contender who is also the transportation minister, voted against the release, and said: "I do not believe in hopeless gestures made for diplomacy alone ? A gesture alone, without exchange, is a step of weakness." Avi Dichter, the minister for public security, also opposed the release because two of the prisoners on the list had "blood on their hands", the Israeli terminology for Palestinians charged with killing Israelis.

The two are Said Atabeh, of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine jailed in 1977 and the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israel, and Mohammed Ibrahim Abu Ali, of Mr Abbas's Fatah party, who while serving a life sentence was elected to the Palestinian parliament in Jan 2006. Both are held for killing Israelis. But Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and the frontrunner in the race to succeed Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, as head of Kadima, hailed the decision. "Whoever releases prisoners only to Hamas is strengthening Hamas," she was quoted as saying by Israeli media.

Israel is currently engaged in Egyptian-mediated negotiations with Hamas to secure the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in Gaza in 2006. Those negotiations appear bogged down over the details of the exchange, even if the principle has been accepted. Some observers suggest that the Hizbollah exchange last month and this release to the PA will now force Hamas to raise its price for the release of Cpl Shalit, specifically by demanding the release of more prisoners who have been engaged in the armed struggle.

Signals from Gaza have been mixed. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said Israel was trying to deepen Palestinian divisions by releasing mostly Fatah prisoners. Hamas is believed to have asked for the release of several Fatah-affiliated prisoners, notably Marwan Barghouti, the West Bank Fatah leader seen as the main rival to Mr Abbas for the Fatah leadership. But the release was welcomed by Taher Nuno, a spokesman for the Hamas government, who said the release of any Palestinian from Israeli jails as an achievement for the entire public, and as "the victory of the will of the resistance, and a means for persisting in the conflict with the Israeli occupation".

That Hamas should be divided in its response does not surprise Mr Khatib. "There are clear signals that there are different views on almost everything within Hamas. This issue is no different. The fact, however, that the PA is not engaging Hamas is covering up these differences." @Email:[e-mail]