Ministers vote against future prisoner releases
Israeli ministers have approved legislation aimed at keeping Palestinian prisoners behind bars, and preventing them being freed in political deals.
Many in Israel decried the release of terrorists serving in Israeli jails as part of recent peace negotiations, and politicians from the right applied heavy pressure which meant that the final batch of prisoners slated for release never went free.
Now, an alliance of ministers from the government’s right to left have backed a bill which is intended to make some prisoners ineligible for release. Such prisoners wouldn’t be able to receive a presidential pardon, and therefore couldn’t be released in the context of negotiations or as part of a deal like the Gilad Shalit agreement, in which terrorists were released in return for the kidnapped Israeli soldier.
The bill won 7-3 approval in the ministerial legislation committee on Sunday, which means that theoretically it will enjoy coalition support and pass to law easily in Knesset votes.
The bill, in its introduction, slams the “absurd situation by which terrorists who commit murder as part of their fight against the State of Israel get released well before they serve out their term.”
Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party, which proposed the bill, said that it is part of Israel fulfilling its “moral duties toward the bereaved families.”
Meir Indor, head of the Almagor alliance of terror victims and their families, told The AJN he believes that freeing terrorists is an insult to soldiers like himself who risked their lives to capture them.
He added: “It’s a moral bill, a strong statement by the government, and a change in the right direction.”
However, he claimed that the law is too limited in scope and won’t prevent prisoner releases immediately. It gives judges the right to declare a criminal receiving a life sentence ineligible for a pardon, but won’t apply to criminals currently in jail. Indor claimed that another weakness of the bill is that judges will use it sparingly, meaning that even once it has been in force for years, there could be enough pardonable prisoners for large-scale releases.
Some Israeli doves have strongly criticised the bill. “The idea is just to put more obstacles in front of any future agreement and interim agreements [with the Palestinians],” said Shaul Arieli, a former member of Israeli negotiating teams who is today a leader of the Geneva Initiative peace proposal.
Arieli told The AJN that in his view “it’s just one more channel to damage and harm the possibility of returning to negotiations.”
NATHAN JEFFAY
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