Israel Draws a Line in the Sand: Only Low-Ranking Terrorists To Be Freed. For Shalit. For Now. Maybe.
Remember when Marwan Barghouti was captured and tried, and everyone (ok, mostly just us and a couple of left of center news outlets) was like "Sharon's just giving him street cred because he's actually a moderate, and he'll release him soon"? Except it turned out that exactly the opposite was true, and Israel was just locking away a mass murderer? Now it looks like Abbas wants to spring him from jail, along with Palestinian Liberation Front Secretary-General Ahmed Saadat. Israel told Abbas to go eff himself:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the PA will demand the release of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti and Palestinian Liberation Front Secretary-General Ahmed Saadat as part of any agreement that would include the release of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. An Israeli official in the Prime Minister's Office said in response to Abbas' demand that, "He can forget about it."
Nice to see this Israeli government has standards: only low-ranking terrorists get traded for kidnapped soldiers. Anyway, the sticking point probably isn't Barghouti. We still tend to think that an Israeli government could more or less get away with releasing him. But the thing with Saadat is personal: he ordered the murder of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi and then ran like a little girl to hide behind Arafat's skirts. Israel of course tried to go after him, but they couldn't get him since any operation would have endangered Arafat - and harming even a hair on Arafat's angelic head could have ignited World War III, because the Arab Street loves its terrorist heroes. So a compromise was reached, and Israel said they'd back off as long as American and British monitors promised to keep Saadat and some of Ze'evi's other murderers "locked up" in a Palestinian jail. "Locked up" is in quotes, because the jail was more like a clubhouse where Saadat and his friends laughed and played boardgames all the time.
Then the peace-loving and not at all terrorist supporting Palestinian public elected Hamas. Hamas, being Hamas, immediately announced that they were going to free Saadat and his terrorist cronies. The international monitors, being international monitors, bailed on the jail. Israel, being Israel, rolled in to make sure that Saadat didn't escape. The UN, being the UN, condemned Israel's actions (because really, why should Israel be allowed react when the Palestinians break binding agreements?) Anyway, Saadat is sitting in an Israeli jail where he belongs, and we seriously doubt that Olmert has the political capital to let him out as part of a prisoner swap. Then again, our record with predicting prisoner exchanges is only slightly better than our record at predicting which fauxtography conspiracy theories turn out to be true - so odds are about even that tomorrow we'll hear the announcement that Saadat has been freed as a unilateral good-will gesture.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the PA will demand the release of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti and Palestinian Liberation Front Secretary-General Ahmed Saadat as part of any agreement that would include the release of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. An Israeli official in the Prime Minister's Office said in response to Abbas' demand that, "He can forget about it."
Nice to see this Israeli government has standards: only low-ranking terrorists get traded for kidnapped soldiers. Anyway, the sticking point probably isn't Barghouti. We still tend to think that an Israeli government could more or less get away with releasing him. But the thing with Saadat is personal: he ordered the murder of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi and then ran like a little girl to hide behind Arafat's skirts. Israel of course tried to go after him, but they couldn't get him since any operation would have endangered Arafat - and harming even a hair on Arafat's angelic head could have ignited World War III, because the Arab Street loves its terrorist heroes. So a compromise was reached, and Israel said they'd back off as long as American and British monitors promised to keep Saadat and some of Ze'evi's other murderers "locked up" in a Palestinian jail. "Locked up" is in quotes, because the jail was more like a clubhouse where Saadat and his friends laughed and played boardgames all the time.
Then the peace-loving and not at all terrorist supporting Palestinian public elected Hamas. Hamas, being Hamas, immediately announced that they were going to free Saadat and his terrorist cronies. The international monitors, being international monitors, bailed on the jail. Israel, being Israel, rolled in to make sure that Saadat didn't escape. The UN, being the UN, condemned Israel's actions (because really, why should Israel be allowed react when the Palestinians break binding agreements?) Anyway, Saadat is sitting in an Israeli jail where he belongs, and we seriously doubt that Olmert has the political capital to let him out as part of a prisoner swap. Then again, our record with predicting prisoner exchanges is only slightly better than our record at predicting which fauxtography conspiracy theories turn out to be true - so odds are about even that tomorrow we'll hear the announcement that Saadat has been freed as a unilateral good-will gesture.
