Israel makes a huge mistake.

[Dinner]

And there is no doubt that many innocent civilains will die because of it. Sharon is reportedly going to give in to Palestinian demands that imprisioned terrorists be set free. This means that many murders and hardered terrorists will once again be free to walk the streets and commit more acts of terror. As of today the PA has not moved one inch towards disarming the numerous Palestinian terror organizations. Under the road map for peace the PA's one and only obligation is to disarm terrorist organizations.

Once again the PA gets something for nothing and the world is worse off because of it.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/07/27/israel.prisoners/index.html

[Drake Tungsten]

So much for all the talk about Sharon not being serious about wanting peace. I can't believe he did this, to be honest.

[Kropotkin]

If it's not some shady plan where he hopes the released prisoners will create enough trouble to turn the tide against the latest plans for peace and get support for an harder approach on the palestinian question. But I guess that's the conspiracy theorist in me speaking...

[Sandman]

Couldn't Sharon have kept the peace process going by dismantling some settlements instead? Or is that too big a sacrifice compared to releasing terrorists?

[Kropotkin]

It should however be noted that the larger bulk of the prisoners has not been arrested for terrorist-like activities but more of criminal activities. The Israeli government claims that no one "with blood on his hands" shall be released.

[Drake Tungsten]

If it's not some shady plan where he hopes the released prisoners will create enough trouble to turn the tide against the latest plans for peace and get support for an harder approach on the palestinian question. But I guess that's the conspiracy theorist in me speaking...

[Kropotkin]

It should also be noted that some, if not most of them, of them was set to released anyhow.

[Cruddy]

My gut reaction was Oerdin's, to be honest. My brain read the article and thought "Well, there's 1,000s detained. What's 500 low level members?"

I suppose the challenge is going to be getting them something useful to do, instead of mouldering inside Gaza or the West Bank.

[Az]

If it's not some shady plan where he hopes the released prisoners will create enough trouble to turn the tide against the latest plans for peace and get support for an harder approach on the palestinian question. But I guess that's the conspiracy theorist in me speaking...

Sharon did Abbas a favour by releasing them. I guess Abbas is a zionist agent, too.

[Ecthy]

Noone in Europe will remember that when the next lethal terract occurs. They'll just say "it's their own fault".

I want to migrate.

[Ecthy]

and just to clarify, they won't mean it as in "they shouldn't have set them free" but as in "they shouldn't have done so much bad" - "do you remember how they set hudnreds of criminals free? those did this" - "oh, that was only a show. victims of state terrorism did this" - "thank you"

[Eli]

What i'm really afraid of is that Israel starts to ignore Pal violations again. The terrorist organizations MUST be dismantled, Israel always insisted on it, but now after a few weeks of relative quiet Sharon, just like Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu and Barak before him prefers to ignore possible long term danger in exchange for short term quiet.

[Ecthy]

"you see that guy he was a friend of me now he's dead." - "blame Israel" - "thank you"

that friend could be YOU, Eli. now go out and re-arrest those guys.

[Az]

Originally posted by Eli
What i'm really afraid of is that Israel starts to ignore Pal violations again. The terrorist organizations MUST be dismantled, Israel always insisted on it, but now after a few weeks of relative quiet Sharon, just like Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu and Barak before him prefers to ignore possible long term danger in exchange for short term quiet.

[Harovan]

As much as I wish the Palestinians luck in the struggle for their own country (by diplomatic means, no by terrorism, of course), setting free convicted terrorists is just silly and I really hope, Israel won't have to regret it. I like Sharon even less than Bush, but in this case I wish him good luck.