Israel to Free Some Palestinians

Israel and the Palestinians embarked Sunday on one of the most emotionally charged phases of their new peace process -- deciding whether Palestinian prisoners, some of whom were implicated in terror attacks, would soon be released from jail.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pushed a 13-8 vote through his Cabinet to agree to terms for the freeing of several hundred Palestinian detainees, considered a key step in advancing the U.S.-backed peace initiative.

In an initial vote, members of Sharon’s government rebuffed him, saying the conditions set for release of Palestinian prisoners were not tough enough. In a second vote, following a series of impassioned exchanges among his ministers, Sharon prevailed.

The question of prisoner releases goes to the heart of the conflict between the two sides, raising painful questions as to whether years of bloodshed, and the loss of hundreds of innocent lives, can be put aside in the interests of peace.

Many Palestinians regard compatriots who have languished for years in Israeli prisons as freedom fighters who sacrificed themselves for the cause of Palestinian statehood. But surviving family members of Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks believe that anyone convicted of spilling Jewish blood should, under no circumstances, be allowed to go free before their full term of imprisonment is served.

With Sunday’s vote, the Cabinet paved the way for release of up to about 400 Palestinians, according to media reports and officials present at the closed-door talks. That would represent only a fraction of the estimated 6,000 Palestinians currently in Israeli jails.

Israeli and Palestinian officials were to meet later in the week to comb through lists with names of specific prisoners whose release the Palestinians are seeking -- and of those whom Israel categorically refuses to free.

Those at the top of the release list include women, juveniles, the infirm and those already approaching the end of a long jail sentence, Israeli officials said.

Among those to be kept behind bars, under the Israeli criteria approved by the Cabinet, are those who are in the midst of a trial. That would appear to ensure that the best-known Palestinian prisoner, Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, would stay locked up for the time being.

Barghouti, on trial in Israel in connection with attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, has lately achieved a high political profile with his leading role in negotiating a truce with Palestinian militant groups from his jail cell, acting through intermediaries.

The Israeli Cabinet agreed that members of the radical groups responsible for the greatest number of attacks during the 33-month intifada, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, would not be allowed to go free.

Sharon was also reported to have assured his Cabinet that there was “no way” those directly involved in the killing of Israelis would be released. However, that could leave some latitude in the freeing of those who were involved in some secondary way.

A large-scale prisoner release has been a key demand of both the Palestinian Authority, led by Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, and the Palestinian militant groups with which he has managed to strike a temporary cease-fire accord.

Both sides have reason for mistrust when it comes to the question of prisoner releases.

In the 1990s, Israel’s then-prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, managed to get around U.S.-backed requirements for a prisoner release by freeing large numbers of Palestinian car thieves and those who were picked up for minor infractions such as overstaying a work permit.

Israel, for its part, says the Palestinians have consistently sought the freeing of those convicted in recent Israeli deaths, even when told that such a deal is not possible.

The Cabinet agreed that the release of prisoners would be conditioned on Palestinian compliance with elements of the U.S.-backed peace initiative, according to an Israeli official who was present.

Families of Israeli victims have been holding daily vigils and demonstrations outside Sharon’s office, and Sunday’s vote brought a fresh outpouring of grief and fury over the prospect of any large-scale release.

“No one deserves to die like a dog in the street,” said Tzafi Adorian, whose husband was killed in an attack on Jerusalem’s open-air Mahane Yehuda market six years ago. “There should be an answer for this, and the answer isn’t pardon for terrorists. The answer is to punish them.”

On the Palestinian side, the release of prisoners is considered one of the primary benefits of seeking a peace accord. Few Palestinian families have not, at some point in this intifada or the previous one, known someone who’s had a husband or a father or a son interned by the Israelis.

Hundreds of relatives of Palestinian prisoners, many of them veiled women and young children, marched through the streets of Gaza City on Sunday, hoisting pictures of jailed family members.

“No peace without the freedom of all!” they chanted.

Along with prisoner releases, the next important element in moving ahead with the “road map” is the Palestinian demand that Israel withdraw from more of the West Bank.

Last week, Israel pulled troops and tanks from the center of the West Bank town of Bethlehem, where they had been an intermittent presence for months, and from the northern Gaza Strip.

“We are prepared to deliver other cities to the Palestinians,” Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said after a meeting Sunday with Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan -- their first official session since the peace process began. “This will be done gradually, step by step.”