The Cabinet has approved a draft of a change in the Basic Law to require a referendum before giving up sovereign Israeli territory to the Palestinian Authority, but it has delayed for more than two hours a vote on freeing terrorists. Sovereign land refers to United Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, all of which have been legally annexed to Israel, but it does not include Judea and Samaria.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is confronted with massive and bitter opposition to freeing 104 terrorists, including Arabs with Israeli citizenship, to fulfill a condition of Palestinian Authority  chairman Mahmoud Abbas for renewing direct  talks.

The Prime Minister is scrambling for a majority, and the major sticking point is the idea of Abbas’ demanding that Israel free Arabs who are Israeli citizens.

Prime Minister Netanyahu packed the Cabinet to win a majority by adding Yesh Atid Minister of Science and Technology Yaakov Peri  to the inner cabinet committee that will vote on freeing the terrorists.

Likud ministers are divided, but the party’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon caved into pressure and said he will back the release of the Palestiniain Arab terrorists but not those with Israeli citizenship.

Jewish Home’s three ministers said they will vote against Netanyahu, as will Likud Minister Israel Katz and Gilad Erdan. The clincher could rest with the Likud’s Israel Beiteinu faction, whose leader Avigdor Liberman has given them the freedom to vote as they please. At least two minsters are expected to oppose freeing more terrorists.

The Prime Minister is expected to win a small majority, but if the Cabinet insists on keeping Arabs with Israeli citizenship off the list, it could torpedo  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s grand design for the resumption of direct talks on Tuesday.

Palestinian Authority officials have said they want “all or nothing.”

Opposition among the Israeli public and even left-wing media is rampant. Netanyahu understood he would meet stiff opposition, and on Saturday night, he took the unusual step of writing an open letter to the Israeli public.

He admitted that freeing the terrorists contradicts the value of justice but nevertheless said it was good for the country to do so.

At the opening of Sunday’s Cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister continued to try to convince ministers to back him. “I believe that renewing the diplomatic process is important for Israel, both in order to bring an end to the conflict and in light of the complex realities in our region, primarily the security challenges from Iran and Syria,” he said.

Naftali Bennett, Jewish Home chairman and Minister of Economy, joined a Sunday morning protest against freeing the terrorists, many of whom murdered  elderly people and young children.

Yair Lapid, Finance Minister and chairman of the Yesh Atid party, reflected the view of those who are disgusted at the idea of releasing more terrorists but still hold out the hope against hope that it will help the cause of peace.

“These people should rot in prison all of their lives, but we need to do what is possible in order to start the peace process,” Lapid said.

One question remains unanswered: Why has Netanyahu broken his promises and stated policy – again?

He said direct talks must resume without any pre-conditions.

Maybe is gaining a promise from the Obama administration to take harsher action against Iran, or perhaps he is winning American agreement that the “red line” for acting against Iran is about to pass.

The U.S. government, like Netanyahu, have made lots of promises in the past.

First published on CAMERA

Palestinian officials and the public have long pressed for the release of Palestinian prisoners, who are revered as heroes in government-controlled Palestinian media. Over the last several decades, Israel has released thousands of such prisoners, often times as goodwill gestures. This spring, President Mahmoud Abbas has reportedly insisted in talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on the release of all Palestinian prisoners, including those convicted of brutal crimes, as a pre-condition for resuming negotiations with Israel.

All too often, mainstream media outlets have whitewashed the terrorist acts and violent crimes of Palestinian prisoners by failing to mention the crimes at all or by falsely minimizing the degree of violence. In some cases, media outlets euphemistically refer to prisoners incarcerated since before 1994 as ”political prisoners,” covering up the atrocities they carried out. CAMERA is the first to publish a detailed list (below), obtained from Israel’s Ministry of Justice, of 118 pre-Oslo Palestinian prisoners, including their names and violent crimes.

The following is a sampling of some of the most egregious examples of the media’s whitewashing of violence on the part of Palestinian prisoners. A portion of them were subsequently corrected following communication from CAMERA or its affiliated sites, BBC Watch and CiF Watch.

Failure to Report the Crime

In several cases, media outlets reported about a prisoner’s detention, or efforts to gain his release, without noting why he is there in the first place. Thus, a Feb. 18, 2013 page-2 photo caption in Ha’aretz, accompanying a large, five-column image stated:

Palestinians in Ramallah yesterday holding placards depicting Samer Issawi, who is jailed in an Israeli prison and has been on hunger strike for 209 days. Palestinians have been protesting on Issawi’s behalf for several days.

As CAMERA reported at the time, Samer Issawi was sentenced to 26 years for attempted murder, belonging to an unrecognized (terror) organization, military training, and possession of weapons, arms and explosive materials. IDF spokesman Eytan Buchman elaborated that Issawi:

… was convicted of severe crimes, which including five attempts of intentional death. This included four shootings, between July 2001 and February 2002, in which Isawi and his partners fired on police cars and buses travelling between Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem. In one attack, a policeman was injured and required surgery. On October 30, 2001, Isawi, together with an accomplice, fired at two students walking from the Hebrew University campus to their car in a nearby parking lot. In another case, Isawi provided guns and explosive devices to a squad, who fired on a bus. Finally, in December 2001, Isawi ordered an attack on security personnel at Hebrew University, providing a squad with a pistol and a pipebomb. Two of the squad members tracked security personnel but opted not to execute the attack.

The BBC also consistently failed to report on the full extent of Issawi’s crimes, as well as those of others on hunger strike at the same time. For example, a BBC report from Feb. 18 2013 made no mention whatsoever of the terrorist activities of Samer Issawi, Ayman Sharawna, Tariq Qaadan and Jafar Ezzedine. As BBC Watch reported:

Ayman Sharawna, from Dura near Hebron, was also released under the Shalit deal in October 2011, by which time he had served ten years of a 38 year sentence for attempted murder and bomb-making. Sharawna is a member of the Hebron branch of Hamas and was rearrested on January 31^st 2012 due to violating of the terms of his release by returning to Hamas activities. Shawarna was originally apprehended on May 10^th 2002 when he and another terrorist planted an explosive device near a branch of Bank HaPoalim on HaAtzmaout Street in Be’er Sheva. The device malfunctioned, but despite that eighteen people were injured in the attack. Sharawna and his accomplice were caught fleeing the scene by members of the public and he was also found to have taken part in prior shooting attacks during the second Intifada.

Tariq Qaadan and Jafar Ezzedine are both senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives. In a March 2013 report which was broadcast on several BBC platforms, Jon Donnison showcased a particular prisoner, with the description of the reasons for his imprisonment given in one laconic sentence: “Ammar Ziben is serving 32 life sentences in an Israeli prison for his involvement in bomb attacks in Jerusalem in 1997.”

According to Ziben’s organization – Hamas – there was rather more to Ziben’s “involvement”:

The ghost of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is scheduled to pay a visit in Washington on Tuesday under a cloak of secrecy, which is bound to be violated by both sides.

False claims and trial balloons have become a trademark of the jockeying by Israeli and PA leaders as well as the State Dept. since direct talks broke off nearly three years ago.

Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat, two days after categorically saying he would not attend the talks without commitments by Israel, reportedly will meet on Tuesday with his Israel counterparts, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s emissary Yitzchak Molcho and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who also won the boogey prize as Peace Process Minister by a different name.

Never allowing himself a chance to grab a headline, Regional Cooperation Minister Silvan Shalom told reporters Thursday, “There is a good chance that negotiations with the Palestinians will resume next week in Washington on Tuesday, provided there are no last-minute complications.”

During a visit to Jericho where he and  Palestinian Authority minister signed a declaration to back a long-delayed industrial park, Shalom claimed Israel has not given in to the condition laid down by chairman Mahmoud Abbas that Israel freeze construction on land claimed by the PA.

The Al-Ahram Egyptian weekly reported this week that its sources said the  time frame of the talks will be 6-9 months. There will be no conditions, but Jordan will join the task when it comes to discussing the status of Jerusalem and final borders.

The Palestinian Authority claims it has not conceded anything and is waiting to see what will be discussed at the meeting planned for Tuesday.

In a counter-claim, Jewish Home Minister Naftali insists that construction is continuing as usual in Judea and Samaria and in parts of Jerusalem that were occupied by Jordan before  the Six-Day War in 1967.

Unofficially, building for Jews has come to a standstill outside major Jewish population centers.

The first item on the agenda next week, if the talks are held, is the release of 82 terrorists, most of them convicted for murdering or being involved in planning attacks that murdered Jews.

The Cabinet likely will be asked to agree to release the terrorists towards the end of the Muslim holy month  of Ramadan, which the Palestinian Authority and rest of the of Arab world has celebrated with unending anti-Semitic movies, television programs and sermons. There has not been one major release of terrorists that has not been followed with their returning to their favorite hobby of killing Jews. But every Israeli government always has been more concerned with winning a good word for a ghetto mentality than for keeping the country secure.

Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have said that if any final agreement is ever signed, it must be approved by a public referendum, which both the PA and Israel probably pray will never happen.

“What is going on in the minds of Americans when they  insist on keeping Jonathan Pollard in prison and demand  that Israel free terrorists” who have murdered Jews, Housing Minister Uri Ariel asked on Voice of Israel Sunday. “It really is amazing.”

Pollard has been in jail, despite ill health, for 28 years for the crime of passing on classified information on behalf of Israel when he worked for the Pentagon. He is the onlyAmerican ever to be sentenced to life in prison for the offense, which usually bears a prison term of 2-4 years.

Pollard has been in jail, despite ill health, for 28 years for the crime of passing on classified information on behalf of Israel when he worked for the Pentagon. He is the only person ever to be sentenced to life in prison for the offense, which usually bears a prison term of 2-4 years.

Jewish Press editor Yori Yanover wrote on Friday, “Israel is giving in on the release of Palestinian prisoners with Jewish blood on their hands. ‘There will be some release of prisoners,’ said Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz. ‘I don’t want to give numbers but there will be heavyweight prisoners who have been in jail for tens of years.’”

In case anyone as sleeping  with the bears in hibernation at the time, Israel has freed thousands of terrorists and security prisoners for dead bodies and most recently for the return of one live body – kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.

Since the 1000-for-1 exchange  two years ago, dozens of the freed Palestinian Authority Arabs have returned to terror.

Previous releases of terrorists have resulted in more than 120 murders of Jews in Israel by the same Palestinian Authority “resistance fighters.

But their suicide bombings do not compare with the gravity of  Pollard’s crime. If not, why would the American judicial system – which of course is fairer, more modern and more sophisticated than the process in primitive Israel – keep Pollard in jail for life?

Pollard’s crime is obviously so heinous that he was not even allowed to attend the funeral of his father in 2011. Nor was he allowed to leave his cell to attend the funeral of his mother 10 years earlier.

The American government really is not hard-hearted. Officials actually allowed Pollard to call his father a week before his death. His father was too weak to speak on the telephone but so what? That’s not the government’s fault.

Leading American politicians who were in office at the time that Pollard was sentenced have come forth in the past three years to admit that he did not receive a fair trial and  that he was unfairly punished.

Israel, cited every year by the U.S. State Dept. for human rights violations, is apparently ready to free more than 80 terrorists, who have visiting privileges, who received “salaries” from the Palestinian Authority for their previous success in killing Jews, and who are paid by Israel to learn in university.

Israel  perhaps could learn something from the United States, but that will have to wait because  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry needs direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to save his face.

Two Syrian rebels crossed over into the Golan on Tuesday night. The IDF now believes that it was Syrian army soldiers who simultaneously opened fire at the IDF patrol, from across the border. The IDF soldiers shot back at the source of the fire. No IDF soldiers were injured in the attack. The status of the two Syrians who crossed over is currently unknown.

In addition, 6 mortars, launched from Syria, hit the Israeli side of the Golan today, and another 20 landed near the border.

At least one false alarm was heard this evening, in or near the town of Katzrin on the Golan.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Cabinet Sunday morning, “We are not putting up any impediments on the resumption of the permanent talks and a peace agreement between us and the Palestinians. There are things that we will strongly insist on in the talks themselves, especially security. We will not compromise on security.”

The rumored focus of Palestinian Authority demands is the issue all terrorists who were jailed before the Oslo Accords including many with “blood on their hands.” Dozens of Israelis have been murdered by terrorists who previously have been released by Israel in “good will “measures or in exchange for dead bodies of Israeli soldiers.

The Almagor terror victims association said that it has obtained a list of 100 prisoners whom chairman Mahmoud Abbas demands that Israel be freed as a “goodwill” gesture before the resumption of direct talks. The list includes terrorists who killed Jews in cold-blooded murders.

The Prime Minister also told the Cabinet that in the event that there is any final agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, it will “be submitted to the people for a decision.”

At lest one Taliban terrorist and three others were killed in a drone strike in Pakistasn Wednesday, four days after President Barack Obama declared he would limit the use of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in order to reduce civilian casualties.

The CIA maintained its usual policy of not commenting on specific attacks, but Taliban called the reports of the pre-dawn drone strike on one of is terrorists “totally false.”

The drone targeted the terrorist in a home used by terrorists for meetings. “Half of the compound has been destroyed,” according to a local official in the North Waziristan region, a terrorist stronghold.

On April 10, we commented on a Guardian report by Harriet Sherwood, titled “John Kerry: talks with Netanyahu and Abbas very constructive,” about efforts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.  Sherwood’s report included several passages about concessions demanded of Israel by Mahmoud Abbas before he’ll agree to resume negotiations, including the following:

[Abbas] also wants the release of 123 political prisoners who have been in jail since before the Oslo accords were signed almost 20 years ago, and for Israel to present a map showing proposed borders. [emphasis added]

As we attempted to demonstrate at the time, using merely open source information, the Palestinians she was alluding to were all convicted for their involvement in murder, or attempted murder, and that the characterization of them as “political prisoners” – suggesting that they were imprisoned merely for their beliefs – seemed to be flatly untrue.

Additionally, some time after our post CiF Watch was able to obtain detailed information on the pre-Oslo prisoners from Emi Palmor, the Director of Pardons at the Israeli Justice Ministry, which included the crimes, dates of conviction and other relevant facts on every Palestinian prisoner in question.   Palmor’s information proved conclusively that all of the prisoners consisted of common criminals convicted of murder and (mostly) terrorists who murdered or attempted to murder Israeli civilians, soldiers, or foreign tourists.

Some time after providing the Guardian with proof that the Palestinians in question can not fairly be referred to “political prisoners” they agreed to revise the passage, which now modifies the claim to note that the pre-Oslo prisoners are merely described as “political prisoners” by the Palestinians:

The Palestinians also want the release of 123 prisoners, viewed as political prisoners by the Palestinians, who have been in jail since before the Oslo accords were signed almost 20 years ago, and for Israel to present a map showing proposed borders.

As we noted at the time of our original post, many Palestinians regard even compatriots convicted of deadly terrorist acts euphemistically as “political prisoners,” and that Sherwood’s text, intentionally or otherwise, served to legitimize the Palestinian narrative which glorifies even terrorists convicted of the most gruesome crimes as ‘victims’ of Israeli oppression.

Our efforts to secure the definition of the term “political prisoner” – which is clearly understood to mean “those who are imprisoned for their political beliefs” - represents an attempt to fight back against the manipulation of language, in the service of an egregiously pro-Palestinian agenda, which is routinely advanced by the Guardian and their fellow political travelers.

This Guardian revision represents one victory within the larger cognitive war.

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