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JAFFA, Israel-Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is slated to host an official celebration ceremony tomorrow on behalf of 199 prisoners to be released by Israel, including two prisoners who directly murdered Jews, WND has learned. About 30 percent of the prisoners scheduled to be released tomorrow were involved on some level in attacks that led to the injury or death of Israelis, according to a WND analysis of the security history of the 199 convicts. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet voted last week in favor of the release, which was slammed by opposition Knesset members as a victory for terror.Olmert said the release was a gesture to Abbas to promote current Israeli-Palestinian negotiations started at last November's U.S.-sponsored Annapolis Summit, which seeks to create a Palestinian state before Bush leaves office in January. Olmert is considered a lame duck prime minister. He has stated he will resign from office after his Kadima party holds primaries for a new leader next month.Included in tomorrow's release is Said al-Attaba, 56, who has been serving a life sentence since 1977 for killing an Israeli woman, and Mohammed Ibrahim Abu Ali, 51, known as "Abu Ali Yatta," who has been behind bars since 1979 for killing an Israeli student.The release is timed for tomorrow's visit here by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will meet the Israeli and Palestinian sides to further Annapolis negotiations.The prisoners will be driven at 9:30 a.m. Jerusalem time by Israeli vehicles to a Jerusalem-West Bank crossing, where they will be transported by PA convoys to the Muqata, Abbas' main compound in which the PA leader will host a celebration ceremony for the freed prisoners. Rice is slated to meet with Abbas in the Muqata the next day.Israeli and U.S. policy considers Abbas and his Fatah organization to be moderate, and earlier this year, President Bush termed Abbas a negotiating "partner" in Middle East peace talks. The Annapolis negotiations seek to hand strategic territory to Abbas' PA.Fatah, however, maintains a so-called military wing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the State Department. Statistically, the Brigades is responsible for more terrorism and Israeli deaths from the West Bank than any other Palestinian terror group. Many members of the Brigades serve openly in Fatah security forces. Some of the prisoners slated for release by Israel tomorrow are Brigades members.Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the prisoner release. "The cabinet decision is additional proof that the Kadima-Labor government is subverting ethical and security norms," Netanyahu said."Instead of taking a position of attacking terror, the government is freeing terrorists with blood on their hands, in exchange for nothing, while Gilad Shalit continues to rot in jail. The inevitable result is that terror organizations will understand that they can send more terrorists to carry out more attacks in Israel – and they'll know that one day, they too will be freed," stated Netanyahu.
National Union Knesset Member Arieh Eldad said the Olmert government would be responsible if any of the freed prisoners go on to kill more Jews."The blood of the innocent victims who will be killed by the released terrorists will be on the head of this government," Eldad said."A government that frees terrorists as a gesture, and not even as part of an exchange, is a government that has no regard for the justice system that convicted them, nor for human life, and has blood on its own hands," he said.Previous large prisoner releases resulted in freed terrorists returning to violence and killing more Israelis.
As in the days of Noah...
