MIDEAST: Prisoners Deal Changes Rules of Conflict

• by Pierre Klochendler (jerusalem)
• Sunday, October 16, 2011
• Inter Press Service

All in all, Israel is to release 1027 Palestinian prisoners. Twenty-seven Palestinian women will be freed as part of the first lot of 450 who assisted or took part in some of the bloodiest attacks against Israelis. A total of 202 of them will be sent to exile in Egypt, Turkey and Qatar.

Both Israel and Hamas have mollified their original positions. Until recently Hamas insisted that it would agree only to send a handful of prisoners to third countries. For its part, Israel will be releasing 280 prisoners who were serving life sentences.

Why now, after over five years of acrimonious negotiations?

At the opening of the special cabinet meeting convened to approve the deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu candidly stated, 'We have reached the best deal we could have at this time, when storms are sweeping the Middle East. I don't know whether in the near future we would've been able to reach a better deal or any deal at all. It's very possible that this window of opportunity that opened because of the circumstances would close indefinitely.'

The assumption is that, as Egypt prepares for parliamentary elections due in November, the Supreme Military Council under Field Marshal Muhammad Hussein Tantawi will be busy monitoring domestic matters.

Since February, the transitional government which succeeded ousted president Hosni Mubarak has invested great efforts to thaw relations with Hamas. In May, Egypt facilitated a reconciliation agreement between the Islamist movement and the more secular Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) under President Mahmoud Abbas; it also opened its side of the Rafah border crossing into the besieged Gaza Strip.

Hamas controls Gaza, while the Fatah-led PA is in partial control of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The siege of Gaza was imposed by Israel after Shalit was abducted in a cross-border raid in 2006, and tightened by Egypt after the Hamas takeover of the Strip a year later.

Egypt's new approach vis-à-vis Hamas altered the rules of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, apparently clearing the way for resumption, under Egyptian mediation, of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas aimed at securing the prisoners' deal.

Another 'circumstance' (to which Netanyahu, in his opening remarks, was reluctant to refer directly) that pushed Hamas for a deal is the unrest in Syria. In view of popular Palestinian support for the 'Arab Spring', the organisation feared that it might be perceived as supportive of a regime that kills its own citizens. Hamas's political headquarters are still based in Damascus.

And, it might have felt the need to compensate the growing popularity of Abbas's campaign for statehood at the United Nations with a domestic political achievement of its own. The fate of prisoners is a highly sensitive issue in Palestine.

Then, there's Netanyahu himself: the Shalit deal has been labeled 'the most important decision' of his tenure, largely because, with regard to the Palestinian question, it's the only bold one he made.

What's next?

Yoram Cohen, the chief of the Shin Beth (Hebrew acronym for Israel's Internal Security Services), sternly predicted in the liberal daily Haaretz, 'This deal doesn't help the security situation — it even harms it. The experience of the past teaches us that 60 percent of those released return to terror activities.'

Cohen was referring to another notorious prisoners' exchange known as 'the Jibril deal' — that one, with Ahmad Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. Back in 1985, Israel released 1,150 Palestinian militants in exchange for three Israeli soldiers captured during Israel's first Lebanon war.

A large number of those Palestinians formed the backbone of the leadership of the first Intifadah uprising, which broke out less than three years after the agreement.

Yet, Cohen acknowledges, the large number of those sent to forced exile will lessen the risk for history to repeat itself. 'The remaining 96 can be dealt with,' he said. Besides, the level of security cooperation between Israel and the PA is, at present, judged satisfactory.

As to the reinforcement of Hamas by freed cadres, Cohen said: 'There are 20,000 members in its military wing. If another 200 or so are added to them, that's not the end of the world.'

The PA welcomed the deal, yet complained that many Palestinian prisoners weren't included in the agreement. Following the current swap, some 6,000-8,000 Palestinian prisoners will still remain in Israeli jails, including Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, a potential heir to Abbas.

The veiled criticism is that while Abbas is engaged in a worldwide campaign for recognition of statehood, Hamas is being conciliatory with Israel.

Top Hamas official Mahmoud e-Zahar retorted by declaring, 'Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) negotiated with Israel for a million years and hasn't achieved a deal like this one.'

'This is a national achievement that we should be proud of,' announced Khaled Meshaal, head of the Hamas politburo, in a statesman-like fashion.

Quoting senior Egyptian officials, the London-based Al-Hayyat newspaper reported on Saturday that Israel might ease up its Gaza siege further as a result of the prisoners swap.

The irony is that the deal could indeed bring about a rapprochement of some sort between Israel and Hamas, if only to embarrass Abbas and his statehood quest, and to divide the Palestinian polity further. Israel staunchly opposes reconciliation agreement between the PA and Hamas.

This has apparently not deterred Netanyahu from allowing the Cairo 'proximity talks' with the most wanted leaders of Hamas's military wings in order to secure the release of Shalit, while peace talks with the PA have been on standby for more than a year.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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