Hopes Grow as Israel and Hamas Discuss Prisoner Swap

Hopes Grow as Israel and Hamas Discuss Prisoner Swap
By ETHAN BRONNER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: November 23, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/world/middleeast/24mideast.html?_r=1&ref=global-home


JERUSALEM — Israel and the Islamist group Hamas appeared to be nearing a deal on Monday to exchange an Israeli soldier seized three years ago for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, a move with far-reaching implications not only for stalled Middle East peace talks but for a range of regional relations.

Palestinian families hold portraits of jailed relatives during a protest calling for their release from Israeli prisons on Monday.
Expectations of a swap in the coming week have been raised by a round of meetings in Cairo sponsored by the Egyptian government and a growing number of statements by Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian officials .

The Israeli government would not comment on any deal making. “Those who don’t know can talk,” said Dan Meridor, Israel’s intelligence minister, on state radio on Monday. “Those who know should keep silent.”

The emerging agreement, should it be approved, would trade Sgt. Gilad Shalit, who was seized by Hamas and other Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid and taken into Gaza in June 2006, for hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including many convicted of organizing suicide bombings and other acts of terror.

While prisoner exchanges have occurred in the past, this one has unusual potential to allow the Israelis to shift some policies toward Palestinians — as well as to unleash a new spate of violence against Israel, making it the topic of anguished debate within the country. It is also being passionately debated among Palestinians because of the deep division between Hamas and its rival, the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority.

Most Israelis have followed the fate of Sergeant Shalit as if he were their own son. A bespectacled and boyish-seeming 23-year-old, he was last seen in a video about two months ago looking thin and wan. His picture and name are everywhere in Israel, and his fate is the topic of endless concern and prayer.

Yet the release of legions of violent fighters and the chance that Hamas would gain politically over the Palestinian Authority have made this a complex negotiation process for the Israelis.

“From our point of view, this will lay the ground for the next 9/11,” Yossi Mendellevich, an engineer whose 13-year-old son Yuval died in a bus bombing in Haifa in 2003, said by telephone. “We know they will not turn to macramé and painting,” he said of the security prisoners slated to be released.

“This will give the tailwind to all those in the Arab world who believe the way to defeat Israel is through terrorist activity. It will lead to the kidnapping of another soldier and to the next release and so on. What will be the end?”

Yaakov Perry, former head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, told Israel Radio that while a real risk existed, “The past has shown that some of the prisoners do not return to terror and some portion are integrated in various operative positions.”

Israelis are also concerned by Hamas’s request that some Israeli Arabs also be released, fearing to increase Hamas’s standing among the 20 percent of its citizens who are Palestinians, some of whom Israel fears are already becoming radicalized.

Moreover, since Hamas receives a great deal of support from Iran, any boost for Hamas could strengthen a country Israel considers the region’s greatest menace.

Most Israelis perform mandatory military service, and the government goes to sometimes extraordinary lengths to bring home soldiers, or their remains.

Among Palestinians, any prisoner release is a source of joy and national relief. But this is an especially delicate moment in Palestinian politics. The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has vowed not to run again because of what he said is his frustration over Israeli and American policies. With no clear successor and a stalled peace process, some fear that if released prisoners are seen as gifts from Hamas, Mr. Abbas and his party will suffer a severe blow.

But Ziad Abu Ein, the Palestinian Authority’s deputy minister for prisoner affairs, played down the amount of damage that a prisoner exchange credited to Hamas could inflict on the authority and Mr. Abbas.

“This is the first time that Hamas will be releasing any prisoners,” Mr. Abu Ein said in a telephone interview on Monday. The Palestine Liberation Organization, by contrast, has released “tens of thousands” over the years, he said.

He added that rather than a Shalit deal giving Hamas an advantage with the Palestinian people, the capture of the soldier in the first place led the people of Gaza to pay a heavy price.

He was referring, among other things, to the blockade that Israel has imposed on Gaza since Hamas took control there in 2007. The embargo, which bars nearly all commercial and human traffic between Israel and Gaza, is largely aimed at isolating Hamas because of its commitment to Israel’s ultimate destruction, and creating a contrast between conditions in Gaza and those in the West Bank, run by the Palestinian Authority.

Many governments, including that of the United States, want to end the embargo to relieve the suffering of the 1.5 million people in Gaza, especially after Israel’s military invasion 11 months ago, which destroyed thousands of homes and factories. But Israel has said it will not end until Mr. Shalit’s release.

Therefore, if a deal is really imminent, it may also signal the possibility of some opening of the commercial crossings. Efforts to reconcile Fatah and Hamas, also being brokered by Egypt, could conceivably make progress as well.

Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem and Michael Slackman from Cairo.