The USA, led for Secretary of State John Kerry, just bent Israel's arm and pressured it to release Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails, even with blood on their hands - terrorists guilty of murdering Israelis, as a goodwill gesture to the Palestinians to try to bring them to the negotiating table. The first batch of 26 murderer terrorists was just released.
It turns out that in the first nagla of terrorists was one who had killed an American citizen. And that upsets the Americans.
According to the Daily Beast:
Among those released Tuesday as an inducement to the Palestinian Authority to return to peaceSo, letting Israel release this guy Mustafa was really just a snafu. Really, Israel must release, as a goodwill gesture, terrorists who killed Israelis, but not terrorists who killed Americans. Terrorists who killed Americans cannot be released, even for the great benefit of it possibly leading to peace. I wish the Israeli government would stand by its principles the way the American government does.negotiations was Al-Haaj Othman Amar Mustafa, a Palestinian convicted in 1991 of killing Frederick Steven Rosenfeld, who the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time of his death reported was a former U.S. Marine and U.S. citizen.
Mustafa was sentenced by an Israeli military court to life after he and two other assailants murdered Rosenfeld in 1989, 21 years after the former Marine emigrated to Israel. According to an Associated Press account of Mustafa’s trial before a military court, Mustafa and two others met Rosenfeld as he was hiking near the settlement where he lived in Ariel. At first, the three men befriended Rosenfeld and even posed for a photo. “Minutes after the picture was taken, the three stabbed Rosenfeld and left him for dead, according to their confession,” the AP dispatch said.
Today Mustafa is a free man, one of 26 Palestinians released from Israeli jails on Tuesday, the first group of a total of 104 prisoners Israel has promised to free in exchange for Palestinian participation in a new peace process. The list of prisoners was negotiated with the Palestinian Authority, at the urging of Secretary Kerry.
Marie Harf, deputy spokesperson for the State Department, told The Daily Beast Thursday, “The State Department conveyed the administration’s concerns regarding the release of this prisoner to the government of Israel, while recognizing the victim was a dual national of Israel and the United States.”
Harf said the Israeli side “acknowledged our views, but it was ultimately their decision to determine which prisoners to release. This is a very difficult situation for all involved, and further highlights the importance of making these negotiations successful.”
...
Kerry came around to the position that the settlement freeze was an obstacle to peace and began looking for another way to bring Abbas to the negotiations table. The agreement included Israel’s commitment to release 104 Palestinians detained for crimes committed before the Oslo peace process began in earnest in 1994.
Mustafa was one of those prisoners. Reuters reported on Wednesday that when he arrived back home to the West Bank, he was greeted as a hero. The story also said released prisoners would be receiving a stipend from the Palestinian Authority worth about $1,120 a month.
“As I understand the facts, there are only two possibilities,” said Elliott Abrams, a deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration and a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It was a very bad screwup by the State Department not to demand that he remain incarcerated or it is a silent change of policy. I believe the policy has always been that we oppose the release of anyone who has committed terrorism against Americans.”
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Terrorists who kill Jews are just doing their job. But terrorists who kill Americans, especially if they're registered Democrats, well that's a crime!
ReplyDeleteif the GOI was willing to play this game . . .
ReplyDeletesomeone in the justice department draws up a list of americans killed/injured in terrorists attacks and the names of the murderers involved. next time there is a demand from the state department, the GOI tells them "OK, we'll let another X number out. just be aware that the first ones to be released include the following murderers of american citizens".