Palestinian Prisoners Being Prepared for Release, Petitions Filed Against Release

JTA

Palestinian Prisoners Being Prepared for Release, Petitions Filed Against Release

St. Louis Jewish Light

2013-12-30

Some 26 Palestinian prisoners were transferred to Ofer Prison in preparation for their release as part of the revived Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Meanwhile, Almagor – a group representing terror victims – on Monday asked Israel’s Supreme Court to prevent the release of six of the prisoners, who are residents of eastern Jerusalem and hold Israeli identification cards.

The prisoners, who will be released at 1 a.m. Tuesday, were being examined by the Red Cross and by doctors, and their identities were being checked.

It is the third round of Palestinian prisoner releases since the American-backed peace negotiations began in July.

The list was published late on Saturday night on the Israel Prison Service website. Anyone who objects to the release of a prisoner must appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court within 48 hours.

The prisoners to be released committed their terror acts before the Oslo Accords, and have served at least 19 years in an Israeli prison, according to a statement released Saturday night by the Prime Minister’s Office. According to the statement, “if any of those to be released resume hostile activity they will be returned to serve the remainder of their sentences.”

Some 23 of the prisoners were convicted of killing Israeli soldiers, civilians or Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.

Demonstrations against the release including family members of terror victims, have been held outside the Prime Minister’s Jerusalem residence for the last several days, with a large-scale protest and vigil planned for Monday night. While the group’s request to hold the large-scale protest beginning on Sunday night through the release was at first denied, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat told demonstrators he would see to it that they be allowed to hold the protest.

Two More Petitions Filed Against Terrorist Releases

Tova Dvorin

Two More Petitions Filed Against Terrorist Releases

Almagor petitions the Supreme Court with 2 requests: to stop the release of terrorists to Jerusalem, and to allow a banned protest.

Israel National News

2013-12-30


Bereaved families against terrorist release (Israel news photo: Flash 90)

Almagor, the association representing bereaved families, filed two petitions Monday to the Supreme Court. One of them is against the decision to release 6 terrorists back to their Jerusalem homes; the other opposes a decision to ban a protest scheduled for Monday night at the Jerusalem home of one of the terrorists.

“We came to file a petition to cry out those cries that are not heard,” stated Attorney Naftali Warzberger, who filed the petition in the name of Almagor.

Regarding the protest, the petitioners called on the court to recognize their rights to freedom of expression. “We have the right to freedom of expression,” the petitioners noted. “The Jerusalem district court’s decision [against the protest] does not fit our rights, as determined by the Supreme Court.”

Elihai Ben Yishai, brother of Ruth Fogel, who was murdered along with her husband and three of their young children in a brutal Arab terrorist attack was present at the Supreme Court as the petition was being submitted.

“I feel ashamed, I have no words,” he told Arutz Sheva. “I came today because tomorrow they may release the killers of my sister-in-law.”

Israelis have been outraged at the releases, which many fear set a precedent for more terrorism. In an attempt to stem criticism, the Justice Ministry reiterated Monday that any terrorist who returns to terrorist activities, when caught, will have to not only serve the remainder of the past sentence, but also serve time for whatever act he was apprehended for, as a condition of the release.

Outrage at the upcoming release of 26 convicted terrorists, set for Monday night and early Tuesday morning, has snowballed over the past several days.

The Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem has been a popular protest site against the release, with bereaved families holding demonstrations there on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday night, Sunday, and Sunday night.

Protests have also erupted across Israel as the release looms. On Sunday night, activists from Judea and Samaria and the Kommemiyut organization staged a mass protest at the entrance to Jerusalem, warning government officials that “the writing is on the wall” for Israel’s future.

On Thursday, another petition filed by Almagor preventing the entire release was rejected by the Supreme Court. “With all due understanding of the petitioners’ pain, their petition does not raise any legal ground for intervention. The claims have been raised and ruled on in the past,” stated the judges.

The previous terrorist release, in October, saw waves of protests across Israel. The demonstrations culminated in an emotional protest outside of the hotel room of US Secretary of State John Kerry and a petition submitted to the High Court to stop the releases.

Palestinian Inmates Prepped for Release Monday Night

Lazar Berman; Times of Israel staff

Palestinian Inmates Prepped for Release Monday Night

Left-wing MK joins voices opposed to freeing terror convicts, slams linkage between releases and settlement construction

The Times of Israel

2013-12-30


A group of Israelis clash with security guards at the entrance to Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence, on December 30, 2013, in protest of the upcoming release of the third batch of 26 Palestinian prisoners. (Photo credit: Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Palestinian inmates slated to be released Monday night were transferred to Ofer Prison between Jerusalem and Ramallah on Sunday. They were undergoing identification procedures, medical checks and examinations by the Red Cross Monday.

The release marks the third phase of a four-stage series of releases agreed on when peace talks with the Palestinians were resumed in July.

The Almagor terror victims’ organization filed for an injunction Monday with the Supreme Court against the release of prisoners who are residents of east Jerusalem. The organization also demanded the right to protest outside the home of one of the prisoners slated for release.

Two people were arrested overnight Sunday-Monday during a protest in front of the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem against the upcoming release of the 26 Palestinian prisoners.

On Sunday night, left-wing Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz, a staunch supporter of peace talks with the Palestinians, said he surprised observers by coming out against the release during an interview with Channel 10′s Dan Margalit.

“He asked me again and again if he had heard correctly, that I object to the release of terrorists now,” Horowitz wrote in a statement posted to his Facebook page. ”So I say it here again, in the clearest way possible: It is folly to release terrorists at such a stage of the negotiations, and certainly when [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu links the release to settlement construction. And what we do get at the end of the day? Wounds, bruises, a scourge. We are releasing murderers and also building in places where it is clear that we will not remain” under a permanent peace deal with the Palestinians.


MK Nitzan Horowitz of the Meretz party (photo credit: Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

“Bibi [Netanyahu] suffers from a split personality,” Horowitz added, “or he is simply a serial liar. With one hand he releases terrorist murderers, and with the other hand he allows extremists in his party, like Miri Regev, to pass laws that sabotage the talks.” Regev on Sunday pushed a bill through the Ministerial Committee for Legislation that would see the annexation of the Jordan Valley.

On Saturday night, a panel of Israeli cabinet ministers approved the list of 26 Palestinian prisoners to be released on Monday.

All of the prisoners on the list (Hebrew PDF), save three, were convicted of murdering Israeli civilians, soldiers or Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel. In a press release Saturday night, the Prime Minister’s Office said all of the inmates had been convicted of offenses committed prior to the signing of the Oslo Accords in mid-1990s.

Almost all of them were given life sentences, although a few would have been up for release in the next decade. They have all served between 19 and 28 years of their terms. Click here for a list of the convicts and their offenses.

Terror Victims Organization Petitions High Court Against Palestinian Prisoner Release

Terror Victims Organization Petitions High Court Against Palestinian Prisoner Release

Almagor seeks injunction against government’s plan to free 26 more terror convicts until court can fully hear the petition.

The Jerusalem Post

2013-12-30

Almagor, the NGO that advocates for victims of terrorism, petitioned the High Court of Justice on Monday demanding that it stop the government from releasing Palestinians convicted for killing Israelis.

The organization wants the court to issue an injunction against the move until it can fully hear the petition.

As the Israeli government prepares to release 26 additional prisoners convicted of acts of terrorism before the signing of the Oslo Accords, the relatives of terrorism victims are also planning a large-scale demonstration in faint hopes of foiling the move.

Almagor is arguing that the government has exceeded its authority by releasing Palestinians who are residents of east Jerusalem, and thus holders of Israeli identity cards.

Some of the names of those due to be freed late Monday reside in east Jerusalem. Almagor is hoping that the High Court will at least delay the release and agree with its claim that freeing east Jerusalem residents would constitute an erosion of Israeli sovereignty in the capital.

Video courtesy of Eli Mandelbaum

The organization is also demanding that the court permit a large-scale demonstration in front of the prime minister’s residence as well as a procession to the Old City. The Jerusalem district police is opposed to such a procession. Almagor is arguing before the court that the police is limiting its right to free expression and the right to protest.

Palestinian officials condemned on Sunday the “Israeli blackmail” that led to the postponement of the release of 26 Palestinian security prisoners by one day.

The prisoners were scheduled to be released on Monday night at 1 a.m., but technical issues forced the postponement to Tuesday at 1 a.m.

The Shin Bet had already transferred the 26 prisoners expected to be released to Ofer Prison west of Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority said.

According to the PA, the prisoners will be released at 1 a.m. Tuesday after being identified and being medically examined by the Red Cross.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club said that the number of Palestinian prisoners still left in Israeli prisoners who were jailed prior to the Oslo Accord is 32, instead of the 26 that were supposed to remain in prison according to the deal agreed on in July. Among them are 14 Israeli-Arabs and one prisoner from Jerusalem who has an Israeli ID.

Israel Releases Another 26 Prisoners

Israel Releases Another 26 Prisoners

JTA

2013-12-30

Israel released a third group of Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal aimed at jumpstarting peace negotiations.

Israel freed 26 prisoners late Monday night in the third of fourth scheduled releases of a total of 104 Palestinians jailed for killing Israeli citizens, according to news reports.

The release came despite a Supreme Court petition from the organization Almagor, which represents victims of terrorism. The group asked the court to prevent the release of six of the prisoners who are residents of eastern Jerusalem and hold Israeli identification cards.

The prisoners were greeted with a hero’s welcome in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas waited through the night to greet the men at his headquarters in Ramallah, the Associated Press reported.

The list of prisoners was published late Saturday night on the Israel Prison Service website. Anyone who objects to the release of a prisoner must appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court within 48 hours.

The prisoners to be released committed their terrorist acts before the Oslo Accords, and have served at least 19 years in an Israeli prison, according to a statement released Saturday night by the Prime Minister’s Office. “If any of those to be released resume hostile activity they will be returned to serve the remainder of their sentences,” the statement said.

Twenty-three of the prisoners were convicted of killing Israeli soldiers, civilians or Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.

Demonstrations against the release including family members of terrorist victims have been held outside the Prime Minister’s Jerusalem residence for the last several days, with a large-scale protest and vigil planned for Monday night. While the group’s request to hold the large-scale protest beginning on Sunday night through the release was at first denied, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat told demonstrators he would see to it that they be allowed to hold the protest.

Israel Names 26 Long-Serving Palestinian Prisoners It Will Release Under Pledge Made to Restart Peace Talks

Josef Federman

Israel Names 26 Long-Serving Palestinian Prisoners It Will Release Under Pledge Made to Restart Peace Talks

National Post

2013-12-30


A relative of Palestinian prisoner Said al-Tamimi weeps as family and friends prepare his home after receiving the news of his impending release from an Israeli jail, in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, on Dec. 29, 2013. (Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images)

Israel on Sunday announced the names of 26 long-serving Palestinian prisoners it will release this week under a U.S.-brokered formula to resume Mideast peace talks.

All of the prisoners were convicted in connection to the killings of Israelis. The planned release, expected to take place late Monday, has angered many Israelis.

Under heavy pressure from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Israel and the Palestinians resumed peace talks in July. As a precondition, the Palestinians were forced to drop a demand for a halt in Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, captured areas they claim for a future state. In exchange, Israel agreed to release 104 of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners it holds. This week’s release will be the third of four planned phases.

The Israeli government said the prisoners’ crimes were committed before the beginning of the initial Israeli-Palestinians peace talks in 1993. All have served sentences of between 19 and 28 years.

In the southern Gaza Strip, the family of Rami Barbakh anxiously awaited his return. Barbakh has been imprisoned in Israel for nearly 20 years after being convicted of murdering an Israeli man in 1994.

Dancing in their family home in Khan Younis, Rami’s parents handed out candies to well-wishers and prepared for a large family gathering upon his return. They put up posters of his picture and invited people to celebrate with them.

Meanwhile, Israeli relatives of the victims protested the release.

Meir Indor, head of Almagor, an association of families who have lost loved ones in militant attacks, accused the government of selling out the victims.

“Maybe it will make happy the families of the murderers, but it is a sad day to the victims of terror in Israel,” Indor said. “It is a message to murderers: You can kill a Jew and you can be released. You have the umbrella of Kerry.”

Kerry, who has been mediating the talks, is expected back in the region this week to calm rising tensions. In response to the planned release, Israel has said it formally will approve plans to build some 1,400 settlement homes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Releasing Arab Terrorists Proves Jewish Blood Is Cheap, Say Those Protesting Prisoner Release

Daniel K. Eisenbud

Releasing Arab Terrorists Proves Jewish Blood Is Cheap, Say Those Protesting Prisoner Release

‘No matter where these men go, they will kill – because that is the agenda of their lives,’ warns Meir Indor, head of Almagor Terror Victims Association.

The Jerusalem Post

2013-12-30


Israelis protesting the release of Palestinian terrorists (Photo: Daniel K. Eisenbud)

“When we put terrorists in prison, it sends a message: Don’t mess with the Israeli nation – we are tough,” said Meir Indor on Sunday afternoon, as he sat surrounded by images of the faces of terror victims, whose murderers are scheduled to be freed in two days. “Releasing them tells the world that Jewish blood is cheap.”

Indor, the chairman of the Almagor (“Don’t Be Terrorized”) Terror Victims Association, who was born and raised in Israel, said that after serving in the IDF and hunting terrorists, he knows unequivocally that releasing them is a profound and deadly mistake.

“One thing we knew when we captured them is that we have to keep them in prison for the maximum period,” he said. “These men are what I call ‘life bombs,’ because no matter where they go, they will kill – because that is the agenda of their lives.”

Indor said that when convicted killers are released, the message is unmistakable: “If you kill a Jew, you’ll never serve a full prison term, and [you’ll] become a celebrated hero by the Palestinian Authority and Islamic world.”

Joined by several demonstrators stationed a few hundred meters from the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem for the fifth day in a row, Indor added that the hypocrisy exhibited by the United States is as egregious as it is deadly.

“Americans don’t release prisoners, but when they make Israelis do so, it creates a double standard that the Arabs understand all too well,” he continued. “I can assure you, they will kill again.”

This sentiment, accompanied by palpable rage, was reiterated Sunday by a cross section of Israelis, all of whom vehemently oppose the scheduled release of 26 convicted Palestinian killers late Monday night or early Tuesday morning.

A celebratory ceremony will immediately be held in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

In July the government agreed to free 104 such Palestinians in four stages during the nine-month negotiating period that ends in April. This is the third release. Fifty- two prisoners have been freed in two prior releases.

“I have a message for [US President Barack] Obama and [Secretary of State John] Kerry,” said protester Lizi Hameiri. “Don’t patronize us. We are not a colony that you will force to release terrorists. We are the ones who are going to pay the price in blood.”

Hameiri deemed the hypocrisy of the US demand as unacceptable and unconscionable.

“You are forcing us to release predator animals in our streets – something you would never do in the US,” she said, raising her voice.

“You sell my people’s blood cheap and our kids are not safe anymore because of you!” Ortal Tamam, whose uncle was murdered by terrorists in 1984, said Kerry has ostensibly treated Israelis like “puppets” in an internationally staged performance.

“He plays with us without knowing who we are, or the pain this is creating,” she said. “It’s a shame that he is making Israel do something he would never do in a million years, and with good reason: because it’s insane.”

Further exacerbating the protesters’ anger was Kerry’s widely ridiculed statement in November warning Israelis that if peace talks break down, it may usher in a third intifada.

“When Kerry said that, he ensured the Arabs will make it true,” said Indor.

In an open letter from Netanyahu to Israeli citizens in July, shortly before the initial phase of the fourstage release, the prime minister addressed his controversial decision, noting that he understood the pain it would inflict on the families of those who had been killed.

“This is an incredibly difficult decision,” wrote the prime minister, whose brother Yonatan was killed in the raid on Entebbe in 1976. “It hurts the bereaved families, it hurts all of the Israeli people and it hurts me very much.”

While Netanyahu conceded that the release clashes with “the principle of justice,” he added that “sometimes prime ministers are forced to make decisions that go against public opinion – when the issue is important for the country.”

Asked how she is internalizing the prisoner release, Sara Hatzni-Cohen, who is eight months pregnant, said it has forced her to ponder how she will explain such a morally tenuous arrangement to her son one day.

“How can I explain to my son when he is older what Israel did?” she asked. “How can you send your son to the army when you know he puts his life at risk to fight terrorists, and 10 years later the government that sent him to fight releases them?” Despite her misgivings, Hatzni-Cohen said she will not hesitate to send her son to the IDF when the time comes, although it will be exceedingly difficult.

“I love my country with all my heart, and I will send my son anywhere he is needed, but it will be very hard knowing the State of Israel releases terrorists for nothing,” she said. “It’s going to happen again because now it’s no longer a taboo.”

Meanwhile, American-Israeli David Jacobs cited the US response to the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center to illustrate American hypocrisy.

“When Arab terrorists blew up the Twin Towers, the American government went into Iraq, killed a bunch of civilians and had its leader hung,” he said. “Then they went to Afghanistan and killed everyone in sight, whether they had anything to do with it or not, and rightly killed [Osama] bin Laden. After that they invaded Pakistan and killed more people.”

Jacobs then asked rhetorically: “Now Israel is releasing terrorists at the request of the US government?” Ron Hillel, an 18-year-old conscript preparing to join the IDF in the coming months, attended the demonstration with his friends Yuval Arzoni and Idan Amer, also new recruits. Hillel said Tuesday’s release is antithetical to why he is joining the army.

“In the army I will gladly protect my family and country by stopping terrorists,” said Hillel. “So it makes me angry that these murderers will become free.”

Asked how the decision has affected his view of the leadership of the country, Hillel paused for a moment before looking at the images of the murdered terror victims.

“It makes me want to one day become the man in power, to make sure this never happens again,” he said.

Victims’ Reps Seek to Block Palestinian Prisoner Release

JTA

Victims’ Reps Seek to Block Palestinian Prisoner Release

The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

2013-12-30


A poster of Palestinian prisoner Rami Barbakh, right, and late Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat, ahead of the expected release of Barbakh in Khan Younis, on Dec. 30. (Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

A group representing Israeli victims of terrorism filed a petition to block the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Twenty-six prisoners expected to be set free early Tuesday as part of the revived Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were transferred to Ofer Prison in preparation for their release.

On Monday, the organization Almagor, which represents victims of terrorism, petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to prevent the release of six of the prisoners, who are residents of eastern Jerusalem and hold Israeli identification cards.

The prisoners, who will be released at 1 a.m. Tuesday, were being examined by the Red Cross and by doctors, and their identities were being checked.

It is the third round of Palestinian prisoner releases since the American-backed peace negotiations began in July.

The list of prisoners was published late Saturday night on the Israel Prison Service website. Anyone who objects to the release of a prisoner must appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court within 48 hours.

The prisoners to be released committed their terrorist acts before the Oslo Accords, and have served at least 19 years in an Israeli prison, according to a statement released Saturday night by the Prime Minister’s Office. “If any of those to be released resume hostile activity they will be returned to serve the remainder of their sentences,” the statement said.

Twenty-three of the prisoners were convicted of killing Israeli soldiers, civilians or Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.

Demonstrations against the release including family members of terrorist victims have been held outside the Prime Minister’s Jerusalem residence for the last several days, with a large-scale protest and vigil planned for Monday night. While the group’s request to hold the large-scale protest beginning on Sunday night through the release was at first denied, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat told demonstrators he would see to it that they be allowed to hold the protest.

26 Palestinian Prisoners Readied for Release

JTA

26 Palestinian Prisoners Readied for Release

Anti-Terror Group Mount Last Ditch Appeal

The Forward

2013-12-30

Some 26 Palestinian prisoners were transferred to Ofer Prison in preparation for their release as part of the revived Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Meanwhile, Almagor – a group representing terror victims – on Monday asked Israel’s Supreme Court to prevent the release of six of the prisoners, who are residents of eastern Jerusalem and hold Israeli identification cards.

The prisoners, who will be released at 1 a.m. Tuesday, were being examined by the Red Cross and by doctors, and their identities were being checked.

It is the third round of Palestinian prisoner releases since the American-backed peace negotiations began in July. The list was published late on Saturday night on the Israel Prison Service website. Anyone who objects to the release of a prisoner must appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court within 48 hours.

The prisoners to be released committed their terror acts before the Oslo Accords, and have served at least 19 years in an Israeli prison, according to a statement released Saturday night by the Prime Minister’s Office. According to the statement, “if any of those to be released resume hostile activity they will be returned to serve the remainder of their sentences.”

Some 23 of the prisoners were convicted of killing Israeli soldiers, civilians or Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.

Demonstrations against the release including family members of terror victims, have been held outside the Prime Minister’s Jerusalem residence for the last several days, with a large-scale protest and vigil planned for Monday night. While the group’s request to hold the large-scale protest beginning on Sunday night through the release was at first denied, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat told demonstrators he would see to it that they be allowed to hold the protest.

Prisoner Release Set to Go Ahead, Despite Protests

Yori Yalon; Efrat Forsher; Daniel Siryoti; Shlomo Cesana

Prisoner Release Set to Go Ahead, Despite Protests

Some 26 Palestinian prisoners set to be freed on Monday night in third stage of prisoner release • Demonstration against the release held outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem • Bereaved daughter: The release floods us with pain and loss.

Israel Hayom

2013-12-30


Protesters outside the Prime Minister’s Residence on Sunday (Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel)

With the third stage of the Palestinian prisoner release set to be carried out on Monday night, demonstrations against it continued on Sunday. Police dispersed a protest outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, and two demonstrators who entered a security zone were arrested.

Ortal Tamam, niece of murdered soldier Moshe Tamam, received an order from the Jerusalem municipality on Sunday morning to dismantle within three hours the protest tent she had erected outside the Prime Minister’s Residence. The order drew criticism, and shortly before the deadline, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat came to speak with Tamam, promising to help find a solution that would allow her to stay in place.

“The entire nation of Israel identifies with your cries,” Barkat said.

In another protest, dozens of right-wing activists gathered at the main entrance to Jerusalem and called on the government not to free murderers. Two demonstrators were arrested at this protest.

Government ministers on Sunday issued varied responses to criticism of the prisoners’ release. Pensioner Affairs Minister Uri Orbach (Habayit Hayehudi) said, “Our voters do not think it is necessary to leave the coalition, despite the release of terrorists.” Tourism Minister Uzi Landau (Yisrael Beytenu) said, “For years we’ve been deteriorating from bad to worse on this matter.” And Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz (Hatnuah) said, “I would have preferred a settlement [construction] freeze to a prisoner release.”

The Almagor Terror Victims Association and bereaved families were set to present a petition to the High Court of Justice on Monday against the prisoner release.


Meira Stern-Glick with a picture of her father, murdered Israel Prize recipient Professor Menahem Glick (Photo credit: Dudi Vaaknin)

The third stage of the prisoner release will include the killers of Israel Prize recipient Professor Menahem Stern.

“It’s a very difficult feeling,” said Stern’s daughter, Meira Stern-Glick. “This time, I believe there were options other than freeing the murderers. They should be in jail for the rest of their lives. The bereaved families understand more than the rest of the public the pain and injustice involved in this.

“The release floods us anew with the pain and the feeling of loss that is accompanies us every day. It is also a great public loss, as my father was an internationally known researcher of the Second Temple period. When he was murdered, my father was working on a big research book that he did not get to complete. He was a warm and loving family man, and he did not get to meet most of his grandchildren, who were born after the murder. I expect the current government to do everything it can to end this cycle of bloodshed.”

Meanwhile, as Israelis deal with the pain of the upcoming release, the Palestinians are preparing welcome festivities for the freed prisoners. Some 26 prisoners will be transferred from the Ofer prison to the Huwwara checkpoint near Nablus. From there, they will head to the Muktataa compound in Ramallah, where there will be a celebration attended by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to arrive in the region this week for the ongoing peace talks.

Israel Releases More Palestinian Prisoners

Ruth Eglash; William Booth; Sufian Taha

Israel Releases More Palestinian Prisoners

The Washington Post

2013-12-30


Relatives of Israelis who were killed by Palestinians militants hold black umbrellas and photos of their relatives as they march in Jerusalem on Dec. 30. (Abir Sultan/EPA)

The Israeli government Monday night released another 26 Palestinian prisoners serving long sentences for killing Israeli citizens, part of a deal struck between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry to bring Palestinian leaders back to peace negotiations.

It is the third of four scheduled releases for a total of 104 Palestinian prisoners, all serving 19 years or more in Israeli jails for crimes committed before the 1993 signing of the Oslo accords.

For Israelis, each release appears more difficult than the last. A few hundred people have been staging an emotional protest in front of Netanyahu’s official residence for the past three days, waving signs depicting bloody hands, as others gathered Monday night outside a prisoner’s home in East Jerusalem.

Among the demonstrators at Netanyahu’s house was Elihai Ben Ishai, whose sister, her husband and their three children were killed in their sleep in the Jewish settlement of Itamar in the West Bank in 2011.

“The U.S. government would not release convicted murderers, so why is it pressuring Israel to release terrorists and murderers?” Ben Ishai said.


A Palestinian man sprays a mural on a wall near the family home of Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Shehadah in the Qalandia refugee camp near Jerusalem on Dec. 30. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images)

In Ramallah, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was ready, for the third time, to welcome home prisoners who are seen as heroes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip because their attacks on Jewish Israelis were motivated by resistance to the Israeli occupation.

“They will participate in a special torch-lighting to celebrate the beginning of the new year,” Palestinian Minister of Prisoner Affairs Issa Karak said in an interview. “We are very happy for the release of our prisoners, who have spent 20 years in jail, and see this as a step towards freedom for all our prisoners.”

Among those released Monday night were three men convicted of slitting the throat of Sara Sharon , an Israeli prostitute and mother of seven, and leaving a note warning that they would continue to kill Jews until all Palestinian refugees came home.

Also set free were Muammar Ata Mahmoud Mahmoud and Salah Khalil Ahmad Ibrahim, convicted of stabbing to death an Israel Prize-winning history professor, Menahem Stern, as he strolled the Hebrew University campus in June 1989.

Qadura Fares, president of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, said that Israel was not doing the Palestinians any favors and that all these prisoners should have been freed as part of the Oslo accords, an agreement to establish a measure of Palestinian self-rule and partial Israeli troop withdrawal.

Fares said he was happy about Monday’s release, saying it gives a “ray of hope for the release of all other prisoners.”

There are about 4,700 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails, most convicted in Israeli military courts of participating in or planning terror attacks.

Meir Indor, head of the Israeli victims association Almagor, said that among the 26 Palestinians released Monday, six hold Israeli identification cards and live in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as the capital of a future state and which most Israelis insist will never be divided from the rest of Jerusalem.

“Where is the justice in this?” Indor said. “At the graves of each of these victims, the government promised on the one hand that Israel would provide justice, but then with the other hand they destroy that justice by releasing convicted terrorists and murderers.”


A person holds an Israeli flag with red color upon it during a protest of the Palestinian prisoners release on Dec. 30, 2013, in Jerusalem. (Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images)

Barkat Cancels Disbandment of Terror Victim Protest

Gavriel Fiske

Barkat Cancels Disbandment of Terror Victim Protest

Jerusalem municipality had said demonstration could not continue; 5 prisoners slated for release are East Jerusalem residents

The Times of Israel

2013-12-29


Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat speaks with Israeli demonstrators, some of them relatives of Israelis who were killed by Palestinians, outside a protest tent set up against the upcoming release of Palestinian prisoners, near the Prime Minister residence in Jerusalem on December 29, 2013. (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

A group of terror victims’ families and their supporters, camping out outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem ahead of Monday’s scheduled release of 26 long-serving Palestinian prisoners, were asked early Sunday by city authorities to clear their camp, but the order was later rescinded by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.

The municipality had said that it “could not allow the public space to become residential” and ordered the families to clear out within a few hours, but noted that they would still be permitted to protest during daylight hours.

However, later in the day, Barkat visit the protesters, expressed his solidarity with their cause and said that he would arrange the “technical issues” needed for the demonstration to continue. Although the families erected a tent on a sidewalk outside the prime minister’s official residence in the Rehavia neighborhood of the capital, a representative said that no one was sleeping overnight at the location.

“The prime minister and [other cabinet] ministers aren’t able to deal with the families’ outcry and want to shut us up,” a spokesperson for the group, the Almagor Terror Victims Association, told Ynet news earlier.

Housing Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) said on Sunday he supported the protesting families and added that releasing “convicted murderers is not just.”

On Sunday, a full list was released of the 26 prisoners, all serving lengthy or life sentences for terrorist acts committed before the 1993 signing of the Oslo peace accord, including the murder of Israelis or Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israeli security services. The release, slated for Monday night, is the third of four scheduled releases of long-term Palestinian prisoners serving in Israeli jails under the framework of the ongoing, US-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Five out of the 26 Palestinian prisoners to be released are East Jerusalem residents with blue ID cards, entitling them to Israeli citizenship, health insurance and other benefits, it was reported on Sunday.

Almagor, which publicized the information, said it was planning to appeal the release to the High Court, alleging that because the Palestinian prisoners are residents of Israeli territory and could receive benefits from the state after their release, granting them freedom goes against the terms of the release agreement, Army Radio reported Sunday morning.

However, a government source said the appeal would be unlikely to succeed, because despite the prisoners’ permanent residency status, “they are not defined as Israeli citizens, only residents, and therefore there is no contradiction with the agreement.”

Arab residents of East Jerusalem, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967 and formally annexed in 1980, carry the blue ID cards of Israeli citizens but most, by choice, are not Israeli citizens and do not carry Israeli passports. Although they are entitled under Israeli law to take Israeli citizenship, very few choose to do so. Unlike Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem residents can move freely throughout Israel.

A list of those said to be East Jerusalem residents provided to The Times of Israel by Almagor contains the names: Abu Hadir Muhammad Yassin Yassin, who shot and killed an Israeli in Jerusalem’s Old City; Ahmad Yusuf Bilal Abu-Hassin, who murdered multiple Palestinian collaborators with Israel; Mustafa Ahmed Khaled Jumaa, who was convicted of aggravated assault and was to have been released in 2016; Da’agna Nufal Mahmad Mahmoud, who helped murder an Israeli in Holon and who, according to Almagor, is a resident of the Shuafat refugee camp; and Ahmed Ibrahim Jamal Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of attempted murder and was to have been released in 2016.

Israelis Protest Palestinian Prisoner Release

Israelis Protest Palestinian Prisoner Release

Demonstration comes as Israel reveals names of 26 prisoners to be freed as part of ongoing peace negotiations.

Al Jazeera

2013-12-29


Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence (EPA)

Dozens of Israelis gathered outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home to protest against the planned release of Palestinian prisoners.

The demonstration on Saturday came as Israel released a list of 26 Palestinian prisoners to be freed next week amid US-sponsored peace talks.

Netanyahu’s office said the release of the prisoners was authorised on Saturday evening, and all of those named had served sentences of 19 to 28 years.

The release was to be carried out at least 48 hours after the list was published, in order to give the Israeli High Court time to look into appeals. But since the government already approved the release, the High Court was expected to reject any petitions.

Meir Indor, the chairperson of Almagor, an organisation that operates on behalf of the victims of attacks, warned against the move, noting: “Releasing terrorists will bring more casualty to the area.”

This marks the third group of a total of 104 prisoners Israel agreed to release, with the first two batches freed in August and October.

The US is seeking to broker an agreement on a “two-state solution,” in which Israel would exist peacefully alongside a new Palestinian state. The prisoners’ release is viewed by the US as a vital confidence-building measure.

Israeli-Arab Terrorists to Be Released

Israeli-Arab Terrorists to Be Released

The Jewish Press

2013-12-29

The terror victims association Almagor claims that on the list of terrorists to be released tomorrow are terrorists who are also Israeli citizens, according to a report in Arutz-7.

The organization says this goes against the promise made to them, that at least Arab terrorists who are also Israeli citizens would be released to the Palestinian Authority during this prisoner release.

Almagor is preparing a petition to the Supreme Court to block the release of those Arab terrorists they claim are also Israeli citizens.

“Jewish Blood Is Not a Gesture”

Tova Dvorin

“Jewish Blood Is Not a Gesture”

Bereaved families continue protest against terrorist release in front of Prime Minister’s house Saturday.

Israel National News

2013-12-28


Protest against terrorist release, December 28 (Flash90)

Dozens of bereaved families gathered in front of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Jerusalem home Saturday night, in another wave of protests against next week’s upcoming release of 26 terrorists to the Palestinian Authority (PA).

“Shame on you—you have forgotten us!” protestors chanted, waving pickets and sporting banners. Among them are slogans like “Jewish blood is not a ‘gesture'” and “(Defense) Minister (Moshe) Yaalon—you have forgotten us.”

The demonstration is yet another outcry against the upcoming release, which is slated for Monday night and early Tuesday morning. This week’s release is the third installment in a series of “gestures” to the PA, with a total of 104 convicted terrorists and murders slated for release by March 2014.

On Wednesday, another mass protest erupted at the Prime Minister’s residence, with relatives of terror victims standing in the cold to show public disdain for the slated releases. The protest came just hours after bereaved mothers met with Knesset members from all factions and called for a halt to the release.

“I call on the Prime Minister to reconsider the release of terrorists given the recent terror attacks,” declared Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon at the meeting.

“In a normal country in which a bus blows up on Sunday, a police officer is stabbed on Monday, and a worker fixing the security fence is shot to death on Tuesday, terrorists would not be freed the following week as a ‘gesture,'” Danon argued.

Thursday saw more protests, this time outside of a government compound in Tel Aviv. The protest was attended by dozens of families and members of Almagor, the terror victims’ advocacy organization who has opposed the releases throughout the entire negotiations process.

“We should say to John Kerry and to (US President Barack) Obama, don’t press Israel. No to double standards, Israelis and Americans have the same rights,” stated Almagor Chairman Meir Indor at the protest. He added that just as the US doesn’t release terrorist murderers, it shouldn’t press Israel to do so.

The Supreme Court also rejected a second petition against the release Thursday, stating “with all due understanding of the petitioners’ pain, their petition does not raise any legal ground for intervention. The claims have been raised and ruled on in the past.”

The previous terrorist release, in October, saw waves of protests across Israel. The demonstrations culminated in an emotional protest outside of the hotel room of US Secretary of State John Kerry and a petition submitted to the High Court to stop the releases.

Almagor to Host Meal with Bereaved Familes

Almagor to Host Meal with Bereaved Familes

Israel National News

2013-12-27

A “Melaveh Malkah” post-Shabbat meal will be held on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. with three bereaved families who are protesting the upcoming terrorist release in a tent outside the Prime Minister’s Home in Jerusalem.

The Almagor terror victim’s organization has invited the public to take part in the meal in order to show solidarity with the families.

Mass Protest: “Govt. Ministers, Shame on You”

Yoni Kempinski

Mass Protest: “Govt. Ministers, Shame on You”

Protesters outside ministerial meeting to approve terrorist release block traffic to shouts of “Jewish blood is not a gesture.”

Israel National News

2013-12-26

A mass protest of bereaved families demonstrated Thursday night outside a government compound in Tel Aviv, where a ministerial committee meeting was anticipated to approve the looming release of 20 terrorist murderers planned for early next week.

The planned released, part of “gestures” in peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA), comes despite a terror wave, and amid massive protests. Video from the latest demonstration can be seen here:

Meir Indor, Chairman of the terror victims association Almagor, said the threat posed to Israelis by terrorism increases every time US Secretary of State John Kerry visits.

“We should say to John Kerry and to [US President Barack] Obama, don’t press Israel. No to double standards, Israelis and Americans have the same rights,” argued Indor. He added that just as the US doesn’t release terrorist murderers, it shouldn’t press Israel to do so.

The ministers voting on the release came in for heavy criticism.

“On this day we say to governmental ministers that supported the terrorist release, shame on you. Look us in the eyes and tell us why you conducted the release of terrorists up till now … so they will arrive in [PA Chairman] Mahmoud Abbas’s open arms? We release and they slaughter us,” said protesters.

Oren Tamam, the brother of soldier Moshe Tamam HYD who was kidnapped, murdered and mutilated in 1984 by terrorists who are now set to go free, said at the protest “we came to protest against this awful decision.”

“We call on Prime Minister [Binyamin] Netanyahu and all the ministers who raised their hands in favor of the vote to free the terrorists to take it back,” said Tamam. “Since the two previous batches [of releases] the terror has only risen. An additional release of terrorists will only add to these incidents.”

Some of the protesters blocked the road saying “Jewish blood is not a gesture.” They succeeded in slowing down traffic for several long minutes until police officers were able to clear them.

Netanyahu is poised to announce new housing plans next week timed for the terrorist release. Bereaved father and current events analyst Dr. Aryeh Bachrach recently called Netanyahu a “scoundrel,” arguing that the Netanyahu uses housing plans to deceive the voting public.

Meanwhile the Supreme Court rejected a petition on Thursday, which called for stopping the release until clear criteria are established about the releases.

2,000 People Protest Release of Palestinian Prisoners Outside Ofer Prison

Lahav Harkov; Jerusalem Post staff

2,000 People Protest Release of Palestinian Prisoners Outside Ofer Prison

Almagor Terror Victims Association says 7 of 16 victims’ families were not warned which prisoners had been slated for release.

The Jerusalem Post

2013-10-29


Bereaved families protest Palestinian prisoner release outside Ofer prison, October 28, 2013. (Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)

Some 2,000 people protested on Monday evening outside Ofer prison against the upcoming release of 26 Palestinian security prisoners, Israel Radio reported.

MKs from Bayit Yehudi, a party who has vehemently objected to the release of prisoners as part of the ongoing peace talks, attended the protest.


Bereaved families protest Palestinian prisoner release outside Ofer prison, October 28, 2013. (Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)

Earlier on Monday, Almagor Terror Victims Association chairman Meir Indor told the Knesset Interior Committee that several terror victims’ families had not been informed about which prisoners had been slated for release before their names reached the press.

“The equation ‘freeing prisoners equals talks’ or ‘freezing settlement construction equals talks’ is wrong, and the government has to stop this,” Knesset Interior Committee chairwoman Miri Regev (Likud Beytenu) said.

Regev called the committee meeting to discuss how the soon-to-be-released prisoners were chosen.

An Interior Ministry representative at the meeting said he did not know how the terrorists were selected or who made the list.

Indor complained that only seven of the 16 families of victims of the terrorists being released had been notified before the list of prisoners was sent to the press.

“This is an injustice on top of the even bigger injustice of releasing prisoners,” he said.

Justice Ministry attorney Yifat Raveh said that the ministry began contacting families two hours before the list became official, but did not successfully reach everyone.

Regev told the Justice Ministry representative that the process of notifying families should have begun earlier, not the same night the names were being released to the press, since a tentative list had been made a week earlier.

MK David Tsur (Hatnua) continued his party’s line of blaming the Bayit Yehudi Party for prisoner releases, saying that the government had a choice of gestures it could have made at the beginning of talks – negotiating on the basis of 1949 armistice lines, freezing settlement construction or freeing terrorists – and that the worst was chosen because of pressure from the right-wing party.

“Bayit Yehudi ministers are responsible for the prisoner release because they prevented any other option in order to avoid a political backlash,” MK Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) said.

Indor asked Tsur if he thought that Palestinian prisoners would have been released once an agreement was reached, even if one of the other options had been chosen, and Tsur said, yes.

“So this is just a scheduling matter?” Indor asked incredulously. “Human lives are not a down payment.”

“In any other place in the world, if someone murdered a Jew and the government wanted to release him, we would shout that it’s an injustice,” MK Shuli Moalem-Refaeli (Bayit Yehudi) added.

Regev said that “no normal country in the world frees murderers,” and Zandberg accused her and other “second-tier Likud MKs” of letting out their frustrations at the government even though it is led by their party.

High Court Rejects Petition Against Palestinian Prisoner Release

Revital Hovel

High Court Rejects Petition Against Palestinian Prisoner Release

“With all due understanding for the petitioners’ pain,” there is no legal pretext for the court’s intervention, says judge.

Haaretz

2013-12-26


Demonstrators protest outside of the Prime Minister’s Office ahead of the cabinet vote on the prisoner release. (Photo by Emil Salman)

The High Court of Justice on Thursday rejected a petition against next week’s scheduled release of a third batch of Palestinian prisoners, 26 in number.

“With all due understanding for the petitioners’ pain, their petition doesn’t raise any legal pretext for our intervention,” wrote Deputy Supreme Court President Miriam Naor in her ruling. “The arguments it raises have been discussed and decided in the past, with regard to this very same government decision.”

Naor was referring to petitions by Almagor, the Terror Victims Association, against the first and second prisoner releases, in August and October, respectively.


Palestinian relatives celebrate while waiting for the release of Palestinian prisoner at the checkpoint at the entrance of Beit Hanoun between north of Gaza Strip and Israel, Oct. 29, 2013. (Photo by AP)

Under the agreement that restarted Israeli-Palestinian talks in July, Israel promised to release four batches of prisoners altogether over the course of the nine months of talks. In those cases, and again in this one, the court found that such a decision is within the government’s authority, and that no egregious flaws were found in the decision-making process that could justify court intervention.

The current petition was filed by five members of the Schijveschuurder family, who lost five other members of their family in the 2001 bombing of the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem. One of the terrorists responsible for that attack, Ahlam Tamimi, was freed in the 2011 exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, while two others remain in jail. According to the petition, ever since her release, Tamimi has been inciting other Palestinians to murder Israelis.

The petition asked the court to order the government both to reconsider its decision to free the current batch of prisoners, whose identities haven’t yet been announced, and to set clear criteria for any future release of terrorists.

The state said in its response that a date for the third release hasn’t yet been set, but it is expected to happen in the coming days.

Haaretz reported on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to announce Israel’s plans for new housing tenders in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem next week, following the release of the third group of Palestinian prisoners.

According to an official in Jerusalem, Netanyahu did not heed the United States’ request to postpone the announcement of the new tenders, and rejected warnings by the European Union on the matter.

Govt. to Choose Terrorists to Release

David Lev

Govt. to Choose Terrorists to Release

A government committee is set to meet Thursday to discuss the names of terrorists Israel will be releasing from its prisons next week.

Israel National News

2013-12-26


Freed hunger striking terrorist Samer Issawi (Flash 90)

A government committee is set to meet Thursday to discuss the names of terrorists Israel will be releasing from its prisons next week, in the third batch of releases Israel committed to over the summer as the price for luring Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas back to the negotiating table. The release of 20 terrorists, set for Sunday or Monday next week, is the is the third of four installments in which 104 terrorists were promised to go free during the 9 month peace talks led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

According to reports, Israel is “linking” construction in Judea and Samaria to the terrorist release. In the coming days, the reports said, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will announce the issuance of permits and tenders for the construction of new homes in Judea and Samaria.

According to Netanyahu, the U.S. agreed to sponsor the peace talks on the condition of an Israeli commitment to release terrorists, and did not demand that Israel declare a building freeze prior to the talks.

The names of the terrorists will be released 48 hours before they are actually released, in order to allow families and groups opposed to the release to petition against it. Working with the Almagor organization, several families whose loved ones were murdered by the terrorists likely to be released said they would set up protest tents outside the government’s Jerusalem headquarters when the vote to release the terrorists is taken by the cabinet next week.

Opposition to the release has also risen among Knesset members, who say that, given the uptick in terror attacks in recent days, this is no time to be releasing terrorists.

Meeting with bereaved mothers and a mixed group of MKs on Wednesday, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud) expressed his opposition to the upcoming release.

“I call on the Prime Minister to reconsider the release of terrorists given the recent terror attacks,” Danon said. “In a normal country in which a bus blows up on Sunday, a police officer is stabbed on Monday, and a worker fixing the security fence is shot to death on Tuesday, terrorists would not be freed the following week as a ‘gesture,’” he said.

Despite Terror Wave, Gov. To Free Terrorists

Ari Yashar

Despite Terror Wave, Gov. To Free Terrorists

3rd batch of releases set for early next week, even as terror attacks spike since last Friday. Protests planned opposite Netanyahu’s house.

Israel National News

2013-12-25


Protest against terrorist release (file; Miri Tzachi)

Despite the recent wave of terror attacks since last Friday, the Israeli government intends to go ahead with a third batch of terrorist releases early next week, as part of “gestures” to the peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Reports indicate the government will similarly start a new Judea and Samaria building freeze next week as well.

The looming release of 26 terrorists, on either Sunday or Monday, is the third of four installments in which 104 terrorists were promised to go free during the 9 month peace talks.

The Almagor terror victims announced that it will hold a protest vigil opposite Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s home starting Wednesday morning. At the protest a large screen is planned to be set up, where video recordings of bereaved family members asking Netanyahu to cancel the release will be played.

Opponents of the terrorist release note that according to agreements between Israel and the US, each release batch is to be preceded by a special meeting of a ministerial cabinet to determine whether or not to approve the release.

Those against the release argue that if meeting is a rubber stamp process which can only approve the release, there is no point in dividing the release into batches. Rather they reason that the release should be all at once to prevent the anguish of bereaved families.

Opposition to the release has been expressed from within the coalition government itself. Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett commented sardonically that “we continue the diplomatic process as if there is no terror, while the Palestinians are continuing the terrorism as if there is no diplomatic process.” Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud) has similarly opposed the releases.

Former MK Michael Ben-Ari offered a different solution to the terrorist release problem. Ben-Ari protested the last batch of releases in late October, saying “we’re against freeing terrorists, and in favor of killing them.”

The terrorist releases come as part of ongoing peace talks, whose secretive contents were recently revealed by PA sources. US Secretary of State John Kerry’s proposed plan, which he intends to push through in January, includes international control of Jerusalem, mass Israeli withdrawals in stages, and guarantees from Israel to “earn” its status as a Jewish state.

Meanwhile PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has rejected the plan. A senior Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official revealed the PA is staying in the talks only to free all 104 terrorists.

After initial reports that Kerry might delay the third batch of terrorist releases to pressure Abbas into accepting his plan, Abbas rejected the notion, threatening “total failure” in the talks.

Almagor to Protest Outside Netanyahu’s Home

Almagor to Protest Outside Netanyahu’s Home

Israel National News

2013-12-25

The Almagor terror victims association announced Tuesday night that, starting on Wednesday afternoon, it will be holding a protest vigil outside the home of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, over Israel’s intention to release terrorists despite recent terrorist attacks.

The activists are planning to screen movies on a large screen showing bereaved family members asking Netanyahu to cancel the planned release.

Who’s Got Our Back?

Meir Indor

Lt.-Col. (ret.) Meir Indor is the CEO of the Almagor Terror Victims Association. He has founded or participated in founding Sar El: Volunteers for Israel, the Libi Fund, Avoda La’oleh, and other social organizations in Israel.

Op-Ed

Who’s Got Our Back?

If you take a look at Kerry’s plan, you’ll see plenty of military concepts and jargon taken from cyberspace and high tech, but very little security.

Israel National News

2013-12-14

Obama and Kerry want to convince the Israeli public that the agreement they’re promoting is a really great one. To keep people from worrying about the terrorism that will come in its wake (remember what followed the Oslo Accords and the Disengagement), they’ve added an American security envelope to the package.

The plan is supposed to be one that was prepared by about a hundred workers who tag along with General John Allen, one of the U.S. Army’s “good old boys”—i.e. an officer whose promotion was put on ice due to suspicion of sexual harassment—who left Afghanistan to contend with the many problems and the confusion in the military that resulted when Obama forced a retreat from there. Now General Allen will seek to prove himself in the Israeli–Palestinian arena.

If you take a look at the plan, you’ll see plenty of military concepts and jargon taken from cyberspace and high tech, but very little security. The harsh reality is that this plan was in fact authored by organizations of the Israeli left, and only then packaged in American wrapping paper.

Contributors include IDF officers who have long been pushing for a retreat from Judea and Samaria and for the establishment of a Palestinian state. People like Brig.-Gen. (res.) Gadi Zohar, head of the Council for Peace and Security, who earned his reputation as an enemy of the settlement enterprise when he headed the Civil Administration. As far as he’s concerned, there is no need for a military presence in the Jordan Valley, let alone Jewish communities.

In a word, the major influences on the American plan are Geneva Initiative activists and their gargantuan budgets. General Allen and his colleagues essentially copied and pasted the Geneva Initiative’s security provisions:

A Multinational Force (MF) shall be established to provide security guarantees to the Parties, act as a deterrent, and oversee the implementation of the relevant provisions of this Agreement …. Israel shall complete its withdrawal from the territory of the state of Palestine within 30 months of the entry into force of this Agreement, and in accordance with this Agreement. Israel will maintain a small military presence in the Jordan Valley under the authority of the MF and subject to the MF SOFA [status of forces agreement] … for an additional 36 months …. Israel may maintain two EWS [early warning systems] in the northern and central West Bank …. The EWS shall be staffed by the minimal required number of Israeli personnel and shall occupy the minimal amount of land necessary for their operation …. Access to the EWS will be guaranteed and escorted by the MF.

There is little difference between this and the proposal sponsored by General Allen: an agglomeration of security solutions that are dependent in part on gadgets and mostly on a multinational force and cooperation with Jordan.

Prior to this week, there were rumors circulating that the IDF didn’t oppose the plan, and even that the IDF Planning Directorate was working with General Allen and his staff. The media made clear that Netanyahu would have a hard time saying no to General Allen since the relevant parts of the IDF already agreed to a plan with similarly far-reaching concessions back in the Olmert era.

This week, though, we received confirmation that the IDF is collaborating with the American general. The leaders of the Yesha Council met with Nitzan Allon, the general heading Central Command, in the middle of the week, and a recording of what he had to say was subsequently leaked.

“We’ve been involved in this since before it hit the headlines,” said Allon. “We knew these issues would come up and that they would ask the IDF. We already dealt with this in the Olmert era, in 2007. Our argument is that the Jordan Valley is Israel’s strategic buffer zone. There’s a need to develop strategic relations with the Jordanians, to develop an additional layer of protection, but our position on the Jordan Valley is clear.”

Allon then explicitly acknowledged that the IDF is meeting with General Allen.

“It’s unusual that we have such an opportunity to have an influence, including on the American professionals with whom we’ve worked. They’ll make our voices heard.”

Allon’s personal level of confidence in the political process, he added, “is not high.”

Conclusions:

First, the IDF is working with the Americans on a comprehensive retreat plan. They already started talking about it in Olmert’s time. The IDF insists on Israeli control of the Jordan Valley, extending to the Allon Road and beyond, while the Americans want the IDF to control a smaller space.

What about the mountains? Silence on this point, despite discussion of arrangements for the Jordan Valley, makes clear that the IDF is not insisting on control of the mountains.

MK Moti Yogev (Jewish Home), a colonel in the reserves, takes exception to the IDF’s position.

“If the army isn’t fighting for military control of the mountains, that means they’re conceding the IDF’s ability to enter Areas A and B, and they’re leaving the Jewish communities at the mercy of the Palestinians. If we can’t go in there, the level of intelligence will go down—the same way it did in Gaza.”

Rabbi Moshe Hager, who served as a senior commander in Operation Defensive Shield and has a rich background in counterterrorism, says it won’t be possible to defend the Judean foothills without a presence in those areas.

Lawyer Elyakim Haetzni, one of the ideologues of Judea and Samaria, wonders, “The Europeans, as Christians, don’t want us in control of Jerusalem either. Are we going to abandon it too? The argument that we have to make allowances for international pressure always sets the stage for the next round of pressure. And as for the argument that our situation will improve if we do what the world pressures us to do—so far our situation has only gotten worse with every retreat.”

The settler elder, who came to Israel from Germany after Kristallnacht, fought and was wounded in the War of Liberation, was a leading Mapai youth volunteer, and today lives in Hevron, looks around at those who would trade away our land, and understands that at the end of the day, the international pressure brought to bear on us is a blue-and-white product manufactured by Israeli Jews.

Originally published in the Hebrew newspaper Makor Rishon
Translated from Hebrew by David B. Greenberg

Shaked to Haifa University: Where is Freedom of Expression?

Tova Dvorin

Shaked to Haifa University: Where is Freedom of Expression?

MK Ayelet Shaked appeals to the board of Haifa U. over decision to reject the degree of Professor Aumann due to his political views.

Israel National News

2013-12-16


Prof. Aumann lecturing at Hebrew U. (file, Flash 90)

MK Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) sent a letter Monday to the office of Ami Ayalon, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Haifa University, and Minister of Education Shai Piron (Yesh Atid), appealing the controversial decision not to grant an honorary doctorate to Professor Yisrael Aumann.

Professor Aumann is a Nobel Laureate in Economics and a noted academic scholar, yet Haifa University chose to reject him—not based on his scholarship, but ostensibly for his political views.

Ayalon and other board members decided Sunday to decline the grant of an honorary doctorate to the laureate, on the grounds that his “political views are not in line with University values.”

Shaked fired back at the claims Monday, pointing out both that Aumann’s political views should not be a factor in his academic standing and that other factors in his favor were not taken into account during the review.

“How can the board refuse to grant the Professor his honorary doctorate when he has been given international legitimacy by receiving a Nobel Prize?,” Shaked stated. “Why, specifically, must his home [Israel] give him a shameful dismissal when hundreds of universities around the world gladly open their doors to Professor Aumann?”

Shaked added, “It is imperative that academic institutions examine and grant a certificate of appreciation according to the scientific and academic contribution of this candidate—and not according to his political views.”

She also quoted the words of noted Professor Dr. Haim Shane, who sharply condemned the move earlier this week. “While the State of Israel is fighting on the world’s stage against mixing politics and science, the University of Haifa has joined worst enemies of Israeli academia and gave them a boost […] the decision of the Executive Committee cuts off the very values on which the University was founded.”

Shaked’s imperative echoes similar statements by MK Shimon Ohayon (Likud–Beytenu) Sunday, who vowed to bring the issue to the Knesset plenum.

“Every university and research institution should foster scientific research and the only thing that should stand in the way of honoring an individual is a moral flaw or a criminal issue. Judging someone based on his political positions is extreme and extraordinary and should not be done in an academic institution,” he said.

Ohayon also pointed out that since Haifa University is funded by the State of Israel, the refusal becomes a national issue.

The University has been the site of anti-Israel activity before. In 2012, during Operation Pillar of Defense, Arab students demonstrated in mourning not of IDF soldiers, but for downed terrorist Ahmed Jabari. The university later made a public statement against the incident and banned further student demonstrations.

Earlier this year, terror victims’ advocacy organization Almagor publicly spoke out against the university for providing legal aid to convicted terrorists.

Almagor: Abbas in Knesset “Dances on Blood of Terror Victims”

Tova Dvorin

Almagor: Abbas in Knesset “Dances on Blood of Terror Victims”

Bereaved parents from Almagor, an organization representing terror victims and families, protest the invitation of Mahmoud Abbas to Knesset.

Israel National News

2013-11-26


Protester against prisoner release (Flash 90)

Bereaved parents sent a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday protesting the invitation of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to speak at the Knesset.

“We have heard that to our sorrow, you have called Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to speak in Jerusalem at the Knesset—as if you liberating convicted terrorists was not enough,” the letter reads.

Bereaved parents protested en masse last month, when Netanyahu released convicted terrorists and murderers back to civilian areas in PA-controlled parts of Judea and Samaria as a precondition to negotiations.

Almagor not only facilitated the protests—which included both a mass demonstration outside of Israel’s Ofer Prison but also a highly publicized demonstration outside of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s hotel room—but also submitted a petition to the High Court refuting the legality of the decision. That petition was ultimately rejected.

“You are now breaking our hearts again,” the letter continues, “by inviting the man who demanded their release, and who raises these terrorists up as nationalist heroes of the Palestinian people.” The letter goes on to deride the move, claiming that it gives PA officials unnecessary and unwarranted status.

The parents also emphasize their dedication to protesting the move, insisting that if Mahmoud Abbas comes to the Knesset, “we will be there in the name of morality and justice.”

“We will block him ourselves, with our bodies,” the statement affirmed. “On the day he gets to Jerusalem, heaven forbid, we will be there to [physically] block the Knesset, just as we did with many other [demonstrators] when Arafat wanted to go to Jerusalem.”

“If Mahmoud Abbas is received by the Knesset, it will be like dancing on the blood of the terror victims who were murdered by his people,” the letter concludes.

“Mr. Prime Minister, you may have renewed negotiations under heavy American pressure, but who made ​​you invite to the Knesset someone who symbolizes for many of us terror, murder and support of murderers?”

The letter was signed by Dr. Aryeh Bachrach—a bereaved father and head of Almagor Forum of bereaved parents; Meir Indor—terror victim and CEO of Almagor; Simcha and Pearl Malik—bereaved parents; Anat Cohen—bereaved sister; Yossi Zur—a bereaved father; and Ron Kerman—another bereaved father.

Freed Palestinian Killers Showered with Cash, Military Promotions

Paul Alster

Freed Palestinian Killers Showered with Cash, Military Promotions

Fox News

2013-11-19


Ron Levy, (l.), and Revital Seri, (r.), were murdered while hiking near Jerusalem in 1984. Their killer has been freed and will receive more than $100,000 and a military promotion from the Palestinian Authority.

Terror pays in the West Bank and Gaza, where killers recently freed by Israel under pressure from the U.S. are getting six-figure payments and military promotions from the Palestinian Authority.

Issa Abed Rabbo, the longest serving of some 104 Palestinian prisoners to be released, is getting the standard $50,000 the PA pays to freed terrorists, plus another $60,000 and the full cost of his upcoming wedding. Rabbo tied up and shot dead two Israeli Hebrew University students who were hiking near Jerusalem in 1984. Rabbo, now 49, was sentenced to life in prison, but became a hero to some Palestinians for no reason other than killing Revital Seri, 22, and Ron Levy, 23.

The PA has long paid out five-figure sums to terrorists, as well as monthly stipends and military promotions, and also rewards the families of suicide bombers. But the latest examples, especially in light of the Israeli public’s opposition to freeing the prisoners, are triggering a backlash.

“The world thinks it’s funding peace, but instead the Palestinians are funding terror,” said Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon. Their aid money is used to give massive grants to terrorists.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has praised the mother of Rabbo for her “steadfastness” and sacrifices” during her son’s time in prison, celebrated the release of prisoners on the West Bank. He has made winning the freedom of Palestinian prisoners one if his highest priorities, and the U.S. strongly urged Israel to go along with the release as a sign of good faith ahead of peace talks.

Despite polls reflecting the opposition of an overwhelming majority of the Israeli public to the convicted killers being given their freedom, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure from Secretary of State Kerry to make a gesture of good faith, went along with the plan as Israeli and Palestinian officials resumed peace talks in Jerusalem after a three-year hiatus.

The funds paid out to Rabbo and other convicted killers come from the Palestinian Authority’s general fund. The PA gets roughly $600 million in aid every year from the U.S., and hundreds of millions more from its European patrons. The PA says the money is paid out to help the former prisoners adjust to life in the free world, but critics believe it is a government-funded reward program for murder and terrorism.


Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, (l.), has made winning the freedom of killers such as Issa Abed Rabbo, (r.) a top priority. (AP)

“This is yet another example of the way the Palestinian leadership has squandered its resources,” Jonathan Schanzer, author of the recently released book “State of Failure,” which examines the financial dealings of the Palestinians, told FoxNews.com. “In this case, they are not only misallocating huge sums during a financial crisis in the West Bank, they are transferring their resources to convicted murderers, which is completely unethical. American officials should conduct an investigation into whether these funds were allocated from accounts where U.S. tax dollars were involved.”

Among the other Palestinian prisoners freed were:

  • Tsabbag Mohamed, 39, a member of Fatah sentenced to life for the 1991 torture and murder of three neighbors he suspected of collaborating with Israel.
  • Shabbir Hazam, 39, a member of Fatah who, as part of an initiation into a terror organization, killed a co-worker and Holocaust survivor with an ax in 1994.
  • Yusef Hazaa, 46, who was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of two hikers, 35-year-old father of five Yosef Elihau, and Leah Almakayis, a 19-year-old National Service volunteer.

Meir Indor, chairman of the Almagor Terror Victims Association, which represents the families of Israelis murdered by Palestinian terrorists over the past 30 years, tried unsuccessfully to get the Israeli High Court to block the release of prisoners.

“Awarding somebody who killed innocent people such money and giving them the rank in the Palestinian Army of Major General is unbelievable” Indor said.

PM Responds to Stabbing: Palestinian Incitement Must Stop

Lahav Harkov

PM Responds to Stabbing: Palestinian Incitement Must Stop

Likud hardliners call to stop negotiations after soldier Eden Attias is murdered on a bus by a Palestinian teen.

The Jerusalem Post

2013-11-13


Netanyahu speaks at the Knesset during a special Yom Kippur War ceremony on October 15, 2013. Photo: Courtesy—GPO

There cannot be peace as Palestinian incitement continues, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset, hours after a Palestinian teen stabbed soldier Eden Atias near Afula Wednesday.

“Surrounding the murderer is an education system, official Palestinian Authority newspapers, mosques and other places in Palestinian society that are full of incitement,” Netanyahu said. “If we want real peace, the incitement has to stop.”

Earlier Wednesday, lawmakers in Netanyahu’s party called for him to stop peace talks.

“The talks are deluding both the Israeli public and the Arabs,” Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon said. “We must stop this predictable crash course immediately.”

Danon also called to stop the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely said “the Palestinian Authority’s well-oiled incitement system continues to claim victims.”

“[PA President] Mahmoud Abbas has a tactic of indirectly harming Israel. Jews aren’t killed by PA officials but by the ‘Palestinian street,’ which is fed each day by anti-Israel propaganda. We cannot continue talking peace while the PA is talking terror,” Hotovely added.

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni sent her condolences to the soldier’s family and wrote on Facebook that now is not the time for political arguments.

However, she added that “violence will not bring diplomatic achievements. We will fight terror and extremism without compromise.”

Opposition leader Shelly Yacimovich also said said her heart goes out to the soldier’s family and that she trusts the IDF in its fight against terror.

The Labor leader called on Netanyahu not to use the attack “to continue sabotaging negotiations, which anyway are bruised and battered taking place under the shadow of a crisis with the US.”

Bayit Yehudi MKs also spoke out against concessions in negotiations, with Knesset Finance Committee chairman Nissan Slomiansky saying the stabbing “is a direct result of Israel’s policy of freeing terrorists.”

“We make difficult concessions for which we pay in human lives, while the Palestinians only talk,” he stated. “The current situation endangers our sons and daughters while the PA celebrates the release of murderers. This is intolerable and must stop immediately.”

MK Motti Yogev (Bayit Yehudi) said the attack was a result of the IDF not doing enough to stop Palestinians from illegally entering Israel.

“When PA incitement teaches hatred of Jews and calls to destroy us … our security forces must enforce the law and realize that they can prevent the next murder,” he remarked.

Almagor Terror Victims Organization chairman Meir Indor said “we cannot ignore what is behind the recent chain of terror attacks. It is encouraged by the American government, which threatens the obedient Israeli government if they do not release terrorists.”

“The lives of Jews are not as important to [US Secretary of State] John Kerry as the residents of Boston. He wouldn’t have released the Chechen terrorist,” Indor added, in reference to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspected Boston Marathon bomber.

Palestinian Terrorist Kills IDF Soldier at Afula Bus Station

Danny Brenner; Daniel Siryoti

Palestinian Terrorist Kills IDF Soldier at Afula Bus Station

IDF soldier Eden Atias, 19, suffers mortal wounds after being stabbed multiple times by 16-year-old Palestinian at northern city’s central bus station • Northern District Police says teen confessed, said he sought to avenge relatives jailed in Israel.

Israel Hayom

2013-11-13


The scene of Wednesday’s terror attack in Afula (Photo credit: Niv Productions)

Israel Defense Forces soldier Eden Atias, 19, from Nazareth Illit, was stabbed to death by a Palestinian teenager Wednesday in the northern Israeli city of Afula. The Shin Bet and the Israel Police have launched a joint investigation into the incident, which has been labeled a terror attack.

The attack took place around 8:30 a.m. aboard the 823 Egged bus from Nazareth Illit to Tel Aviv. The assailant, identified as 16-year-old Hussein Jawadra from Jenin, who authorities say was residing in Israel illegally, attacked Atias when the bus came to a stop, stabbing him multiple times.

Jawadra then attempted to flee the scene but was quickly apprehended by another soldier and border policeman who were also on the bus. Police forces who arrived at the scene were able to find the weapon used in the attack as well.

Atias, who joined the military in October and was still undergoing basic training, sustained several wounds to his neck and chest. Magen David Adom paramedics rushed him to Haemek Medical Center in Afula where he underwent emergency surgery, and later died of his wounds.

“The soldier was admitted to the hospital in critical condition, suffering from massive blood loss. We administered a series of treatments in an attempt to stabilize his condition, but the injury to his heart was too severe and despite our best possible efforts there was nothing we could do,” Haemek Medical Center Deputy Director Dr. Tuvia Tiyosuno told Channel 2.

Jawadra was taken in for questioning by the security forces. Northern District Police Commander Maj. Gen. Roni Atiya told Army Radio that the teen confessed to the act, saying he sought to avenge relatives who are imprisoned in Israel. “He told us he left his house this morning with a clear intent to harm Israelis because his uncles are jailed in Israel,” Atiya said.

According to Channel 2, the Northern District Police held a security assessment following the attack, after which it decided to reinforce police presence in central locations in the district, to bolster the public’s sense of security.

Atiya said that the police had no intelligence indicating an imminent threat in the greater Afula area. “We have general indications [of threats] all the time. At this time we are unable to determine whether he boarded the bus with the intent to stab someone or whether he was on his way to work. He eventually stabbed the soldier sitting next to him.”

“Palestinian Authority’s Incitement Machine Continues to Claim Victims”

“There was blood everywhere,” Shulamit Twitto, a passenger on the bus, told Israel Hayom. “The soldier was sitting there and there was a huge pool of blood under his seat. I tried talking to him, to see if he was responsive, but he wasn’t.” She added that it was 20 minutes from the time MDA was called until an ambulance arrived.

“I had just boarded the bus and I immediately saw the soldier — he was covered in blood,” a security guard who boarded the bus shortly after the attack, said. “Someone yelled ‘terror attack, terror attack,’ and I was just sorry that I didn’t have a weapon because in cases like these they [terrorists] shouldn’t be allowed to live,” she said.

In a post on his Facebook page, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud) said Wednesday that “following the terror attack that saw an IDF solider murdered in his sleep on a bus, as well and the recent terror attacks emanating from the Palestinian Authority, I have asked the prime minister to immediately suspend the terrorists’ release,” pledged by Israel to the PA ahead of the resumption of the peace talks in August.

“The Palestinian Authority’s well-oiled incitement machine continues to claim Israeli victims,” Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) said in as statement. “Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] is fostering an indirect tactic of harming Israel. The killing of Jews is no longer perpetrated by the PA’s branches but by the ‘Palestinian street,’ which is fed, daily, by anti-Israeli propaganda. We cannot continue to negotiate peace when the PA clearly pursues terror.”

Meir Indor, head of the Almagor Terror Victims Association, said in a statement that “the hand that held the knife today may have been that of a Palestinian teenager, but he was sent by Abu Mazen and his associates in the PA, who offer released murderers a hero’s welcome in Ramallah. By doing that they are raising another generation of young killers who grow up hoping to become Palestinian heroes.”

The organization said that Jawadra “carried out the attack knowing that no one would try to kill him for fear of prosecution, but he also knew that if he was caught and tried his sentenced would be commuted via another [prisoners’ release] deal. Until then, he would sit in prison and receive a scholarship. Once released, he will receive a hero’s welcome in Ramallah and then a generous pension for the rest of his life. What a great deal!”

Almagor further urged the government “to announce that it will no longer release any terrorists, in order to signal that nothing can be gained from murdering Israelis and rehabilitate Israeli deterrence.”

MK Moti Yogev (Habayit Hayehudi) issued a statement saying, “Only yesterday the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s Subcommittee on Judea and Samaria, which I head, warned that the GOC Central Command and the Israel Police are failing to enforce laws against the illegal crossing of thousands of Palestinians from Judea and Samaria into Israel.

“I urge the defense establishment, the IDF, the GOC Central Command and the Israel Police to uphold their duty and prevent such cases. At a time when the PA’s incitement against Jews is increasing, it is up to the defense forces to be even more vigilant. The defense establishment has the ability to prevent the next murder.”

“American Blood Not Redder Than Ours”

Tova Dvorin

“American Blood Not Redder Than Ours”

Anti-terror organizations, bereaved families stage protest outside of US Secretary of State’s hotel in statement against terrorist releases.

Israel National News

2013-11-06

“Don’t free murderers! Don’t free murders!”

The cry echoed across the busy Jerusalem streets tonight (Wednesday) in a demonstration organized by bereaved families and anti-terror organizations outside of Jerusalem’s David Citadel hotel, where US Secretary of State John Kerry is reportedly staying during this round of peace talks with the Palestinian Authority.

Kerry, along with other US officials, has been increasing pressure on Israel to make even more terrorist releases, prolonging the pain of bereaved families. Last week’s controversial and much-debated release of 26 convicted terrorists to civilian areas in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza prompted a last-ditch effort to declare the move illegal under a supreme court ruling. The effort ultimately failed, as did a string of protests outside of Ofer Prison, but the fight to prevent future releases continued tonight through the public demonstration and press conference.

One of the protest participants was Yitzchak Maoz, father of Tehila Maoz, who was murdered at age 18 in the 2001 Sbarro massacre in Jerusalem. “I am here because I don’t want to see any more bereaved families in Israel,” Maoz stated. “A sovereign state cannot treat its own citizens lightly, and to release terrorists with blood on their hands is unjust and immoral.”

Lizzie HaMeiri, organizer of the demonstration and member of anti-terrorist organization Almagor, stated to Arutz Sheva, “We came tonight to protest against the hypocrisy of US Secretary of State John Kerry, on his demands to our government to release murderers with blood on their hands. When the US is notified that among the released terrorists is someone who murdered American citizens they request that the terrorist not be released. Is an American citizen’s blood redder than an Israeli’s? It’s immoral.”

“We ask here for the US not to sell our blood for the sake of negotiations with the Palestinians,” HaMeiri continued. “Israel is not stupid. Negotiations with the Palestinians will lead to more terror [attacks].”

Chairman of Almagor Meir Indor arrived at the hotel to personally deliver a letter of dissent to Kerry, where he demanded that Kerry act according to US policy, which is not to negotiate with terrorists and certainly not to release murderers with blood on their hands.

During the demonstration, Kerry’s motorcade passed; demonstrators tried to approach, only to be stopped by security forces.

Terror Victims Advocate Pens Personal Letter to Kerry

Terror Victims Advocate Pens Personal Letter to Kerry

Israel National News

2013-11-06

Meir Indor, head of the Almagor Terror Victims Association penned a personal letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stating that U.S. law calls not to negotiate with terrorists. Indor attended a demonstration of bereaved family members in front of the hotel where secretary Kerry has been staying during his visit. The protesters chanted “don’t free murderers” and held photos of loved ones lost of terrorist attacks.

Last week the Israeli government released 26 terrorists convicted of murder as part of the Kerry-initiated negations with the Palestinian Authority.

Some demonstrators attempted to approach the street as Kerry’s motorcade passed by and were quickly repelled by security forces.

Kerry Visits Rabin Monument, Bereaved Families Protest

Elad Benari

Kerry Visits Rabin Monument, Bereaved Families Protest

Families of terror victims protested at Rabin Square as U.S. Secretary of State visited the site where former PM was murdered.

Israel National News

2013-11-06

Bereaved families who lost their loved ones in terrorist attacks protested at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the site.

Kerry, who arrived in Israel for a short visit aimed at moving the peace process ahead, laid a wreath at the site where Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated 18 years ago.

The bereaved families, who were joined by Meir Indor of the Almagor terror victims organization, were protesting Israel’s releasing of terrorists as a “gesture” to the PA. The families had asked for a face-to-face meeting with Kerry but were refused.

Lizi Hameiri, one of the participants in the protest, told Arutz Sheva, “Kerry refused to meet with representatives of the bereaved families, while he pushes for the release of those who murdered their loved ones. Kerry ignored us, even as he left. So we just booed him. The people who were inside told us that he had heard us well, but chose to ignore us.”

As Kerry met at the Rabin memorial with Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai and Rabin’s daughter, the demonstrators outside shouted slogans such as “No to releasing terrorists and no to releasing murderers”, “Come and talk with the families of the victims of terrorism,” and, “Our blood is not cheap.”

The Secretary of State reportedly asked what the yelling was about and when one of the hosts explained that it was shouts against the release of terrorists, Kerry simply continued the ceremony, ignoring the demonstrators.

The bereaved families are planning to continue their protest during Kerry’s visit, and will hold another demonstration on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. outside the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem, where Kerry is staying.

Terror Victims’ Org Urges Kerry to Meet With Victims’ Families

Tova Dvorin

Terror Victims’ Org Urges Kerry to Meet With Victims’ Families

Terror victim advocacy organization to appeal to US Sec. Gen. John Kerry to stop pushing for terrorist release, meet with families.

Israel National News

2013-11-05


Protester at last night’s demonstration against the impending prisoner release (Flash 90)

The anti-terror and victim advocacy group Almagor—who recently launched a massive last-ditch effort to prevent last week’s release of 26 convicted Palestinian Arab terrorists to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza—is reportedly appealing to US Secretary General John Kerry this week to stop pushing for terrorist releases as preconditions for negotiations. The group will also protest Kerry’s refusal to meet with terror victims’ families, who have been most affected by last week’s release.

Tonight (Tuesday), at 6PM, a delegation of Almagor representatives and bereaved families will send a written message to Kerry via the front desk of Jerusalem’s David Citadel Hotel, where the Secretary General is reported to be staying. The letter will protest the hypocrisy of US officials for exerting intense political pressure on Israel to release Palestinian Arab terrorists as a precondition for negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas—then refusing to meet with bereaved families to discuss the move and its impact on Israeli security and society. Almagor will then set up a press conference there for the press to record Kerry’s response.


Front of the David Citadel Hotel, where protests are due to take place


Map: David Citadel Hotel (Google Maps)

Those present will include Almagor director Meir Indor who spearheaded legal efforts to prevent the release; two representatives from the bereaved families of Ronen Karmani and Lior Tubol, 17 year-old boys who were kidnapped and brutally murdered on August 22, 1990 by Arab terrorists; and Yitzchak Maoz, whose daughter Tehila, 18, was murdered in the 2001 Sbarro’s massacre in Jerusalem.

Protests will continue against US pressure on Israel to release terrorists tomorrow (Wednesday) at 3PM in front of the hotel on behalf of the bereaved families and in the interests of maintaining Israel’s safety and security.

Almagor has featured prominently in headlines recently for their efforts to prevent the release of convicted Palestinian Arab murderers as “goodwill gestures” to the Palestinian Authority. Another recent campaign by the group saw an initiative to convince officials at Haifa University to prevent their legal officials from providing legal assistance to Arab terrorists, following an expose published by the Im Tirzu student organization.

Terror Victims Organization to Hold Protest after Kerry Refuses Meeting

Lahav Harkov

Terror Victims Organization to Hold Protest after Kerry Refuses Meeting

“He meets with people who support terror, but he won’t meet with us,” says Almagor director Lt.-Col. (res.) Meir Indor.

The Jerusalem Post

2013-1105


Almagor head Meir Indor (Photo: Facebook)

The Almagor Terror Victims Organization plans to hold protests outside US Secretary of State John Kerry’s hotel on Tuesday, after he declined to meet with them.

“We understand that your duty is to further the interests of the United States in the Middle East, but we object to this being done through the release of terrorists who murdered our loved ones and who are liable to murder other Jews in the future,” reads a letter from the organization to Kerry sent Monday.

The organization asked to meet with Kerry “in the name of justice, morality, and fairness… to express our feelings regarding this matter.”

A State Department representative told Almagor director Lt.-Col. (res.) Meir Indor that while Kerry is sympathetic to their cause, he does not have time to meet with them. However, he plans to attend a ceremony honoring the memory of victims of terror.

Pointing to Kerry’s meetings with his Iranian counterpart and with Palestinian Authority representatives, Indor said: “He meets with people who support terror, but he won’t meet with us.”

“Kerry is putting on a show. On the one hand, he’s going to cry at a memorial ceremony; on the other, he releases prisoners,” Indor stated. “We don’t need ceremonies, we need action.”

“It’s inappropriate for him to pressure Israel to do what the Americans won’t do in their own country,” Indor said of prisoner releases.

Last week, the government released 26 prisoners who committed acts of terror before the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. This was the second of four releases, after which 104 terrorists will have been released to the PA as a goodwill gesture to continue peace talks.

Almagor to Haifa U: What About Helping Victims of Terror?

Elad Benari

Almagor to Haifa U: What About Helping Victims of Terror?

Head of the Almagor terror victims association responds to report that Haifa University’s legal clinics assist terrorists.

Israel National News

2013-11-04


Meir Indor (Flash 90)

Haifa University should help victims of terrorism just as it assist terrorists, the head of the Almagor terror victims association, Meir Indor, said on Sunday.

Indor was reacting to a report by the Im Tirtzu organization, which found that the legal clinics at Haifa University devote most of their resources to helping non-Jews, with a special preference for Muslim-Arab terrorists.

One of the cases handled by the clinics reportedly involved the demand by a man convicted of cruel acts of rape to receive festive meals on the Muslim holidays, and not just the sweet dessert that prison authorities hand out.

Legal clinics employ the services of law students, who receive guidance from certified lawyers.

“In the wake of the academic assistance of terrorists, we turn to Haifa University and demand that they set up a clinic for victims of terrorism,” Indor told Arutz Sheva.

He stressed that “every victim of terrorism has the option of demanding, in the name of justice, that the law be followed. Therefore, a clinic such as this can help prevent the release of terrorists and be a real help when we turn to the High Court of Justice. Haifa University, you are helping the terrorists? If so, help the victims of terrorism as well.”

Im Tirtzu discovered that out of 20 cases handled by the clinics since 2009, only two assisted Jewish people. In 8 out of 10 cases handled by the Clinic for Prisoners’ rights, the people assisted were terrorist prisoners, most of whom were accused of nationalist murders.

Responding to the report, Haifa University said it was “proud of its ability to create top quality research and excellent academic instruction, in an environment that is tolerant, multicultural and accepts ‘the other.’ Accordingly, the legal clinics, first and foremost, advance a multifaceted social activity in a variety of topics. The clinics provide students with practical experience, and at the same time contribute to the entire Israeli society. This social activity is carried out separately and with no connection to political and ideological stands, and the attempt to paint this important public and social activity in political or partisan colors is misguided and misleading.”

“Among other things, the purpose of the clinics is to enable weakened groups in Israeli society to receive a defense of their rights. Whoever sees this purpose as a sectorial one or political one, of a specific group and not society as a whole – does not understand what a democratic society is. We also stress that the activity in the clinics is not mandatory for students and only students who want to join the clinics’ activity do so,” said the university, according to a report in the Mida Hebrew-language news and commentary site.

Haifa University under Pressure to “End Legal Aid to Terrorists”

Haifa University under Pressure to “End Legal Aid to Terrorists”

After Im Tirtzu movement issued a scathing report claiming that Haifa University legal clinics aid terrorists, university says, “Im Tirtzu are the ones who are crudely injecting politics into academics for the sake of their own publicity.”

Israel Hayom

2013-11-04


Haifa University (Photo credit: Michel Dot Com)

A day after the Im Tirtzu movement published a report decrying what it termed the politicized nature of Haifa University’s legal clinics, reactions began flooding in from the university, terror victims and Knesset members.

Ilan Yavelburg, a spokesman for the university, described the report as “manipulative and biased” and deemed Im Tirtzu an “extremist political organization.”

Haifa University’s legal clinics are apolitical, he said, adding: “Im Tirtzu are the ones who are crudely injecting politics into the academy for the sake of their own publicity.”

The report focuses on three clinics in particular: the Clinic for Prisoners’ Rights, the Clinic for Human Rights in Society and the Clinic for the Rights of the Arab-Palestinian Minority. It says the causes chosen by these clinics are part of the “Arab nationalist struggle against Zionism.” These causes, according to the report, include undermining the status of the national anthem, providing legal aid to Arab-Israeli security prisoners and opposing Jewish settlement in Acre and Meron. Furthermore, the clinics use public funds and enlist unsuspecting, well-meaning students towards an Arab nationalist agenda, the report says.

Out of more than 20 legal cases that the clinics have handled since 2009, only two were for Jews, the report stated. In all the other cases, the clinics represented Arabs against the State of Israel (in one case the recipient of legal aid was not even an Israeli citizen). And while out of more than 10,000 prisoners held in Israeli jails only 132 (just over 1 percent) are Arab-Israeli security prisoners, eight out of the 10 cases handled by the Clinic for Prisoners’ Rights involved security prisoners, the bulk of whom are terrorists.

Yavelburg said that most of the specific cases described in the report ended several years ago and that in many cases the courts themselves approached the clinics to offer representation.

“The legal clinics receive thousands of queries each year on a wide spectrum of issues including education, women’s rights, single mothers and more. It is no accident that Im Tirtzu chose to ignore this wide range of activity and to spotlight, in an intentional and biased way, just one narrow issue among many,” Yavelburg said.

Reacting to Im Tirzu’s report, Almagor, the terror victims’ organization, sent a letter to the president of Haifa University on Monday.

“The feeling among the bereaved families and the wounded is sadness, anger and outrage,” the letter said.

“In Haifa, there is a population of terror victims and bereaved families who in the past joined our legal battle to prosecute terrorists who hurt us, and we did not see the University of Haifa offer us its services, which it offers, ironically and unfortunately, to some of these terrorists.

“Therefore we ask you to stop providing legal assistance to the terrorists, or alternatively, to establish a clinic that will achieve justice for victims, according to the victims’ rights law. Today we have no clinic that helps us to face the attorneys of the murderers, as well as government bodies working for plea bargains with ridiculous punishments, to shorten their punishments or to give them improved conditions in prison.

“We hope that in response to this letter you will shut down the track that allows terrorists to receive aid from the university. We would be happy if you would agree to meet with us,” the letter said.

“This is another scandal at the University of Haifa, which under the cover of academic freedom harms the freedom of choice of students and imposes on them a post-Zionist agenda,” MK Yariv Levin (Likud) told Maariv newspaper on Sunday.

Levin called on Education Minister Shay Piron to immediately intervene in the matter and to “defend the students who are led astray by these programs and the support they receive from the University of Haifa.”

Lt. Col. (res.) Oren Tamam, brother of the soldier Moshe Tamam, who was kidnapped and murdered in 1984 by Israeli Arabs, Maariv that “radical left activists and students have worked in recent years to actively help murderers, including one of my brother’s murderers, Walid Daka, with endless appeals to the Israel Prison Service, the state attorney, the courts, and the president. These appeals have allowed him to marry during his time in jail. He was able to study toward a bachelor’s and master’s degree, with funding provided by terror organizations.”

Tension among Israelis after Release of 26 Palestinian Prisoners

Matthew Kalman

Tension among Israelis after Release of 26 Palestinian Prisoners

Release of prisoners on demand from Palestinian leaders as precondition for peace talks sparks conflict in Israeli cabinet

The Guardian

2013-10-30

<--! UNAVAILABLE MEDIA -->

Israel released 26 long-term Palestinian prisoners in the early hours of Wednesday, triggering street parties in the West Bank and Gaza that continued through the night accompanied by music, fireworks, automatic gunfire, and outrage from Israelis over the release of terrorists.

The prisoners released on Wednesday were the second group in a total of 104 prisoners who were convicted of killing Israelis before the signing of the Oslo peace accords and who have been jailed for more than 20 years. Their release was demanded by Palestinian leaders as a precondition to the peace talks being conducted under the auspices of the US.

The move created tensions in the Israeli cabinet and ignited strong emotions in the Jewish state. In an attempt to calm the storm of opposition from his rightwing supporters, the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, announced more than 1,000 new housing units and other projects in East Jerusalem and West Bank settlements.

In Palestine, news of further settlement construction could not dampen the celebratory mood as 21 of the freed prisoners were greeted by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and senior officials at an official celebration in the presidential compound in Ramallah. The men laid a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat before being presented to a 3,000-strong crowd of family, friends and supporters who had waited until 1am for the emotional reunion. In Gaza, five additional prisoners were greeted with similar celebrations as they returned to their homes.

“We welcome our brothers, the heroes, coming from behind the bars to a world of freedom and liberty,” Abbas told the crowd in Ramallah, enjoying a rare moment of achievement in his logjammed dealings with Israel. “Today our happiness is great, but of course it will not be complete until every single last prisoner has been liberated.”

“I promise you now there will be no agreement if there is one prisoner remaining,” he vowed.

In nearby El Bireh, hundreds greeted the triumphant homecoming of Israr Samarin and Musa Kar’an, who in 1991 ambushed Tzvi Klein, an off-duty soldier driving to his home in a nearby settlement, and shot him in the head. With loud music blaring from the speakers and supporters firing automatic weapons into the air, the pair mounted a stage constructed in the street to express their happiness.

“Thank God for having achieved this freedom for us,” Samarin said. “My feelings now in front of my family and all these neighbours have erased all the pain I experienced in prison.”

“We as a people love peace, but it must be a peace that protects our honour, that restores our rights and liberates our land, and will uproot all the settlements that strangle our existence and our very selves on this land of Palestine,” he said.

For Palestinians the prisoners have become symbols of resistance to Israeli occupation, but many Israelis were shocked by the insistence on the release of prisoners they consider to be cold-blooded killers. Victims’ relatives waged a legal battle up to the last minute to stop the release, arguing that it would encourage more violence.

More than 3,000 Israelis staged a demonstration on Monday night, forming a human chain around Ofer prison where the prisoners were being held. A smaller group returned just before the deadline on Tuesday.

Meir Indor, leader of the Almagor association of victims of terrorism, said such moves “bring more casualties to the area and more violence. There are other terrorists, young ones, who see those terrorists going out and are being glorified by the Palestinian authority, and they say, well, we can do the same, we will kill Jews and we will be released very soon. So we are fighting for justice for our loved ones, but we are fighting for the other people so they will not be killed.”

On Sunday, the economy minister Naftali Bennett’s pro-settler Jewish Home party launched an attack on his cabinet colleague Tzipi Livni, who is leading the peace talks.

“The release of prisoners in exchange for the dubious right of Tzipi Livni to meet with Saeb Erekat is most terrible. With all due respect, halting the release of murderers is even more important than justifying Livni’s being in the government,” the party said in a statement, which was furiously denounced by Livni’s supporters as an incitement to violence on the eve of the 18th anniversary of the assassination of the former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Bennett stood by the statement and his party’s proposed legislation to block further prisoner releases.

“We are witnessing a tremendous offensive against us,” Bennet said. “The goal is to domesticate us, to force us into the herd mentality. What can we do? We have a different view. Those who support a Palestinian state get support; if you’re against, you are called the extreme right, you’re called a fascist.

But we will not remain silent. We have clear positions and this assault won’t silence us.”

Gila Molcho, whose brother Ian’s three killers have each been freed in the last three exchanges, said she was reliving the “terrible experience” of the day in 1993 when he was hacked to death while working for a European aid organisation in Gaza.

“My brother was a humanitarian. He liked to help people. He was working in the Gaza Strip to help create jobs for the Palestinians,” she said. “We are not a gesture.”

Expressing Israel’s moderate voice, Gershon Baskin, a veteran Israeli peace activist who helped negotiate the exchange of more than 1,000 prisoners for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, said Israel had no choice: “These prisoner releases leave a bad taste in the mouth, but Israel had agreed to release these prisoners by 1999.”

Bereaved Family Relives Horror as Terror Victim’s Killers Set Free

Henry Rome

Bereaved Family Relives Horror as Terror Victim’s Killers Set Free

“I feel like I’m in some kind of nightmare,” says bereaved sister of terror victim Ian Feinberg.

The Jerusalem Post

2013-10-30


Gila Molcho, sister of Ian Feinberg, who was murdered in 1993 by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (Photo: Reuters)

Gila Molcho celebrated her youngest daughter’s bat mitzva on Sunday night, but only hours later her revelry came to a stunning halt. Early Monday morning, Molcho learned that a man convicted of killing her brother would be going free as part of this week’s prisoner release.

“I feel like I’m in some kind of nightmare you have to wake up from,” she told The Jerusalem Post. “Unfortunately, I’m not waking up from it.”

Her brother, Ian Feinberg, was an attorney working on economic development in Gaza for a European aid organization in 1993. In April of that year, two masked men armed with guns, axes, knives and lead pipes burst into the organization’s offices and hacked Feinberg to death.

One of the attackers, Rafat Ali Muhammad Aruki – who was 23 at the time and knew Feinberg personally – was released as part of the prisoner exchange that freed IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. A man convicted of having knowledge of the murder, Yusuf Abdel Al, went free in the prisoner release this past August. The second attacker, Omar Issa Rajib, who was 19 at the time, is slated to go free early Wednesday morning.

“The family somehow has to pull itself together for the fourth time,” Molcho said. “First time, his throat was cut. And three times, we’ve been stabbed in the back.”

Molcho said she was appalled that the state would release prisoners convicted of killing Israelis.

“Jewish blood used to be sacred. It used to be above everything else,” she said. “And it’s being given away as a gesture.”

The release, she said, would beget more terror.

“You’re letting out murderers who become celebs, and in order to maintain the celeb status, they have to keep on [preaching] hate and terror,” she said. “You end up creating more hate and terror.”

She first heard the news from a reporter, not from the government.

According to the Almagor Terror Victims Association, half of the victims’ families were not notified ahead of time about the planned releases.

In a sign that other victims’ relatives may share Molcho’s exasperation, no members of the victims’ families were present at the High Court of Justice when officials from Almagor submitted a petition on Tuesday afternoon to halt the release.

Lizi Hameiri, who is not related to any of the victims, stood outside the High Court on Tuesday to show solidarity with the families and criticize the state’s decision.

“We make gesture after gesture, and all we get is terrorism,” she said, holding a banner that read, “We are not going to be silent upon the release of the slaughterers of our people.”

Prisoners Released, Government Green-Lights Homes in Judea and Samaria

Prisoners Released, Government Green-Lights Homes in Judea and Samaria

In wake of Palestinian prisoners’ release, the government approves immediate construction of 1,500 planned housing units in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, as well as plans for additional 2,000 housing units • Move said to be coordinated with U.S.

Israel Hayom

2013-10-30


Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas greets freed prisoners during a welcome ceremony in Ramallah on Tuesday night (Photo credit: AP)

Israel on Tuesday approved the construction of 1,500 housing units in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and green-lighted the planning of 2,000 additional housing units in the area. Senior political sources said construction on the projects is set to begin immediately, as they pertain to plans that have been made public in the past.

Another senior political source said that the move was coordinated with the U.S. “It was clear, ahead of the resumption of the negotiations that Israel will not agree to any limitations regarding construction,” he said.

The projects include construction in the Ramat Shlomo and Gilo neighborhoods in Jerusalem, in the communities of Adam, Givat Ze’ev, Maaleh Adumim and Beitar Illit in the Jerusalem vicinity area, and in Ariel and Karnei Shomron in Samaria.

Future construction plans include additional expansion of Ramat Shlomo and Givat Ze’ev; as well as construction in Kfar Adumim, Almog and Mehola in the Jordan Valley; and in several Judea and Samaria settlements, including Karnei Shomron, Yakir, Shilo, Talmon, Bracha, Ofra and Beit El.

Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar has also garnered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s consent to immediately promote several additional projects, including a new tourism and archeology center in the City of David in Jerusalem, and promoting the national park near Mount Scopus.

The plans were announced in the wake of the release of 26 Palestinian terrorists, who were paroled as part of a four-phase release schedule pledged by Israel to the Palestinian Authority ahead of the peace talks’ resumption in August.

A High Court of Justice petition filed Tuesday by the Almagor Terror Victims Association in hopes of stopping the move was denied, and shortly after midnight, the prisoners left the Ofer Prison, under heavy guard, en route to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“I want to see justice done,” Ortal Tamam, whose uncle, IDF soldier Moshe Tamam was abducted and murdered in 1984, told the court. “I served in the military and I love my country. I don’t understand why we’re facing this situation, where murderers who killed soldiers are being released. I want to see justice done – I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and hear that 26 murderers got to go home.”

Despite what was describe as emotional pleas by the terror victims’ families, the court denied the petition, saying there was no legal merit to infringe on the government’s decision in the matter.

Almagor Chairman Meir Indor told reporters that, “The bereaved families expected the High Court of Justice – which has only recently weighed in on a government decision regarding African infiltrators – to fight the government head on, but the judges have proven that terror victims mean nothing to them. They have folded the flag of justice instead of waving it where it matters the most – before terror organizations.”

Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon commented on the prisoners’ release Tuesday saying, “This was not a choice between good and bad, but a choice between the lesser of two evils. My heart goes out to the bereaved families, but as a responsible government we sometimes have to make such decision. I hope that we are able to realize whatever benefits lie within this painful decision.”

Meanwhile, Palestinians in Ramallah and Gaza celebrated the release of the prisoners. The 21 prisoners returning to the West Bank attended an official reception at the Mukataa in Ramallah, where Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas greeted them personally.

“We welcome our brothers the heroes coming from behind the bars to a world of freedom and liberty,” Abbas was quoted as saying.

“No permanent peace agreement would be signed as long as there is one single prisoner in Israeli jails,” Abbas said.

The mother of Yasser Abd Rabo, the oldest prisoner to be released Tuesday and a resident of Bethlehem said, “This is a dream come true. I never believed that my son would be released in my lifetime. I won’t believe it’s true until I see him back home.”

Palestinian media reported Tuesday that every prisoner who was released will receive a special grant from the PA, according to the length of his prison sentence. The grants – some of which are expected to amount to tens of thousands of dollars – will join a monthly stipend the PA plans to allot the prisoners, ranging between 2,500 and 4,500 shekels ($710-$1,280) a month.

Almagor: ‘To the Supreme Court, Our Pain Means Nothing’

Tova Dvorin

Almagor: ‘To the Supreme Court, Our Pain Means Nothing’

Meir Indor, head of terror victims’ organization Almagor, attacks Supreme Court’s move to release terrorists in the strongest terms.

Israel National News

2013-10-29


Almagor head Meir Indor (Yoni Kempinski)

The head of the Almagor organization for the rights of terror victims and their families, Meir Indor, has released a statement attacking the Supreme Court’s decision to proceed with tonight’s scheduled terrorist releases in the strongest terms.

Indor stated, “All the red lines have been crossed this time – the release of cold-blooded killers. The bereaved families and the Almagor organization believed that the Israeli Supreme Court, which intervened just this month when it came to an explicit law, for the good of African refugees, and stood up to the government, would intervene here as well.”

“The High Court has proved tonight that the bereaved families and terror victims are worth next to nothing in their eyes, and they have folded the banner of justice… in the face of terror organizations.”

Supreme Court Justices Miriam Naor, Edna Arbel, and Daphne Barak-Erez rejected a petition from Almagor aimed at stopping the release, allowing for 26 convicted terrorists to be released in Judea and Samaria and Gaza to Palestinian Arab families and influence. The Justices stated that the government has the authority to determine the appropriateness for release of each of the prisoners, and that “it has been this way in the past and so it is in this case.”

The Court also rejected the argument that the release violates the conclusions of the 1995 Shamgar Commission. The Commission “dealt with the issue of releasing prisoners in the case of Israeli kidnappings […] not in the context of international negotiations,” the court ruled.

The controversial decision has inspired last-ditch efforts to prevent the terrorist transfer, including a protest by activists blocking the transfer route on Route 443.

High Court Rejects Petition by Terror Victims Association to Block Palestinian Prisoner Release

Yonah Jeremy Bob; Henry Rome

High Court Rejects Petition by Terror Victims Association to Block Palestinian Prisoner Release

Court does not find grounds to intervene in prisoner release taking place in the framework of the peace process.

The Jerusalem Post

2013-10-29


Protesting against the release of Palestinian prisoners. (Photo: Reuters)

The High Court of Justice rejected a petition late Tuesday night by the Almagor Terror Victims Association to block the second round of Palestinian prisoner releases scheduled for the same night as part of the ongoing Israeli- Palestinian peace talks.

According to the terms for entering talks, Israel would release four rounds of Palestinian prisoners over nine months as a confidence-building measure for Palestinian participation in the talks.

Tuesday’s decision came at lightning speed, with the petition itself being filed only Tuesday afternoon, followed by a rushed hearing by a panel of three justices presided over by Deputy Supreme Court President Miriam Naor.

The court said that the issue of releasing prisoners is “a sensitive and complex one which stands at the heart of a public controversy.”

However, the court emphasized that the question before the High Court was “only limited to the legal question: Are there grounds to intervene in the prisoner release taking place in the framework of the peace process?” The court said that at the hearing, it “heard from the niece of [murdered] soldier Moshe Tamam, who spoke with obvious pain and emotion against the prisoner release.”

However, it noted that the murderers of Tamam, who were Arab-Israelis, are not among the 26 prisoners listed as part of the current round of releases.

The petitioners also claimed that some of the prisoners due to be released violated the government’s own standards and were due to be released in error, as they had committed their crimes post-Oslo. One of the principles of the current prisoner release has been to release only prisoners whose crimes were committed pre-Oslo.

The state responded that the defining date for the government’s determination was not the 1993 signing of the Declaration of Principles which started the ball rolling on Oslo, but a 1994 agreement which formalized the 1993 framework, and that all of the crimes came before the 1994 signing.

The petitioners also claimed that the first round of prisoner releases was responsible for a recent uptick in terror emanating from the West Bank, and argued for a delay of the release until the issue could be further scrutinized.

The state responded that security issues and commitments to the US required the release to go forward Tuesday night as planned.

Earlier in the day, ahead of the court’s ruling, Meir Indor, the head of Almagor, told reporters: “We are soldiers without weapons, with papers, against terrorism, against a victory for terrorism.”

“We are fighters for peace,” he continued. “If the murderers are out, there will not be peace.”