Outside Asylum: Israel frees 250 terrorists...why no celebration from lefties? by Jazz Inmate

Israel Frees More Than 250 Prisoners
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 20, 2007; 10:38 AM

BEITUNIYA, West Bank, July 20 -- Israeli police arrested Faten Daraghmeh four years ago inside the Jewish settlement of Ariel. The 30-year-old mother of seven children wore a vest packed with explosives, and she later informed her family that she had planned to blow herself up inside a crowded shopping mall.

Now she is home. Daraghmeh and 254 other Palestinian prisoners walked out of their cells Friday and crossed into the West Bank here just before noon in an ecstatic eight-bus convoy - Palestinian flags, Fatah party banners, and smiling faces poking out from open windows.

Israel Frees Palestinian Prisoners
In a move to boost the political backing of Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, Israel kept good on an agreement and released more than 250 Palestinian prisoners. Most were confirmed as Fatah members, setting up a possible rise in tenstion between Abbas and rival Hamas, which took control of the Gaza Strip last month.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to release the prisoners, a small fraction of the more than 9,200 Palestinians in Israeli jails, to boost the popularity of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party at a pivotal moment in its political standoff with the armed Islamic Hamas movement.

But the first mass prisoner release in more than two years has the potential to harden the partisan divide between Hamas and Fatah, a secular party that has the backing of the Bush administration.

None of those freed Friday were from Hamas, Israeli and Hamas officials confirmed, although Abbas aides said some were in order to show that the president was advocating on behalf of all Palestinians. Nearly every prisoner belonged to Fatah, including Daraghmeh, who frantically waved a poster of Abbas as her women-only bus passed through this crossing north of Jerusalem.

Three of her daughters waited amid the chanting throngs for their mother, who had served just over half her sentence. As Daraghmeh appeared in the window, the crowd passed Noura, a 4-year-old in an embroidered tunic, and Shuruq, a 5-year-old in a frilly white party dress, up to her before the bus zipped toward Abbas' presidential compound for a partisan celebration.

"I'm thanking Abu Mazen very much," Daraghmeh said with a smile, referring to Abbas by his nickname.

Prisoners hold a hallowed place in Palestinian society, and the issue is among the most emotionally resonant in the long conflict. This prisoner release, highly unpopular among Olmert's hawkish coalition partners, comes amid mounting pressure on Israel from the Bush administration and two neighboring Arab countries that recognize the Jewish state to do more to improve Fatah's standing in the West Bank.

Last month, Hamas completed a violent takeover of the Gaza Strip that has left the Palestinian Authority divided across the two territories envisioned as the main components of a future Palestinian state.

-------------

"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)