RUTHFULLY YOURS

In a week in which the United States was slightly embarrassed by revelations that American intelligence agencies were engaged in surveillance of Israeli leaders — at a time in which Jonathan Pollard is in his 29th year rotting in prison — officials in the Foreign Ministry were reminded of yet another double standard that is relevant to current events.

Just a few months ago, as Washington was pressuring us to hastily release terrorists who murdered dozens of Israelis before the signing of the Oslo Accords, it made sure to express reservations about the release of one man — Othman Amar Mustafa. Why him? It turns out that while the U.S. has no qualms about lobbying for the release of those who have murdered dozens of Israelis, it has a hard time accepting the release of a terrorist who killed an American citizens. In 1989, Mustafa killed Frederick Steven Rosenfeld, a native-born New Yorker who immigrated to Israel, near Ariel.

This American dichotomy is just the latest in the long-running saga of prisoner releases. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is insisting on the completion of the third stage of the release, knows full well that nearly half of the 13,000 terrorists whom Israel has released since 1985, resumed terrorist activities either as planners of attacks, executors of attacks, or accessories. Kerry, who is well-versed in the facts and figures, is well aware that even those who do not resume their nefarious trade, contribute mightily to the legitimization of terrorism wherever they are released — places that are in any event teeming.

The Americans don’t need the Israeli precedent to understand this. The U.S. Director of National Intelligence, who answers directly to the president, acknowledged in his semiannual report this year that many al-Qaida terrorists who were imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay and later released returned to terrorism.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. began using Gitmo as a detention center, this at a time when it’s foreign policy was somewhat less naïve. The facility at Guantanamo Bay, which President Barack Obama announced in 2009 would eventually be shut down, was being used by the Pentagon and the CIA as a holding center for hundreds of security prisoners from various countries who were awaiting military tribunals.

Now it turns out that of the 603 prisoners who have been released from Gitmo, 100 resumed their careers in terrorism while another 74 are suspected of going back to terrorism. The report’s authors believe that if more are released without authorities keeping track of their moves, they will once again engage in terrorist activities. The reason, according to the report, is that “terrorists return to regions that are domestically unstable and which are constantly at war, areas where there is always active recruitment by terrorist organizations or rebels.”

Explicit instructions to kidnap

One need not be especially intelligent to draw parallels and understand why the rate of terrorist recidivism is also high when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian story. A simple “copy-paste” can be done when examining the American context.

When it comes to the territories of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, the terrorists are welcomed back into an atmosphere that exalts and lionizes acts of terrorism and jihad. Much has been written in this newspaper about this issue over the years. Just last week, in a “cultural” event hosted by the Palestinian Authority and its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, and its culture minister, certificates of citation were awarded to a number of terrorists convicted of murdering Israelis. These men were released from prison two months ago.

The event, the footage of which was captured by Palestinian Media Watch, depicts a play staged by young children. The plot features two rival groups — supporters of Hamas and supporters of Fatah — tossing away the flags of their respective movements and uniting under the banner of the PA. Afterward, they engage in a gun battle in which they killed all of the “Israelis” that were lined up against them.

Reality, alas, is far more potent than any play. Just like the al-Qaida terrorists from Guantanamo, the situation is similar here — once a terrorist, always a terrorist. Not all of them are like that, but many of them are. Half of all convicted terrorists who are released from prison resume terrorist activities, according to intelligence figures.

Let us examine the terrorists released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange from two years ago. For weeks, officials in the Israeli intelligence apparatus kept deluding themselves into thinking that the freed Palestinians would distance themselves from terrorism. As weeks turned into months, however, they realized the error in their thinking.

Last week, Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel revealed that the Judea and Samaria branch of the Hamas military wing is being run by remote control by a group of terrorists who were included in the prisoner exchange after being sentenced to life sentences for their roles in the murder of Israelis. These prisoners were banished to the Gaza Strip as part of the Shalit deal. It turns out that in the last two years, the Shin Bet security agency has intercepted at least 80 attempted terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria, plots that were masterminded by this particular group of released convicts.

One of those terrorists who was exiled to Gaza, Omar Abu-Sneina, airmailed a computer disk drive to his family in Judea and Samaria. The drive contained detailed instructions on how to execute a kidnapping. The Shin Bet intercepted the drive, which bore the following directives: “If the kidnapped person is alive and needs to be tended to once a week at least in order to bring him food and drink, it would be preferable to stash him at home, on a farm, or in the workplace… It is advisable to avoid hiding him in desolate areas like caves or groves, unless it is a corpse or the severed head of the kidnapped person… It is possible to obtain enemy arms even if it requires using a non-fireable weapon at first.”

Another Palestinian freed in the Shalit transaction who was sent to Gaza and who now lives in Qatar recruited Hasham al-Qader Ibrahim Hajaz, a Hamas terrorist from Mizrat al-Sharqiya, according to the Shin Bet. Hajaz was a member of the terrorist wing that murdered 10 Israelis. He was given a sentence of ten life terms in prison. Here, too, the goal was to carry out a shooting attack and kidnapping of civilians and soldiers.

The dark half

The list of intercepted attempts at terrorist attacks is long, but so is the list of failures, particularly from the distant past. Hundreds of Israelis fell victim to attacks that were carried out by released terrorists. Dr. David Appelbaum, the director of the emergency room at Shaare Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, and his 20-year-old daughter, Nava, were killed by a suicide bomber in September 2007 while they were dining at Cafe Hillel in the capital. The perpetrator, Ramz Salei Abu Salim, was a terrorist who was freed from prison.

Marwan Barghouti, a high-profile name who today is serving five terms of life imprisonment for his role in the deaths of Israelis, was first arrested in 1976 for engaging in hostile activities. His release gave him a stature that catapulted him to a position of leadership during the First Intifada. Barghouti was arrested again and deported to Jordan. He was permitted to return to the territories under the terms of the Oslo Accords. With the outbreak of the Second Intifada, he assumed another leadership role, this time with the Tanzim. Under Barghouti’s stewardship, the Tanzim began a terrorist organization.

Other “celebrity terrorists” whom Israel has freed only to see them become terrorist leaders include Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was liquidated in a March 2004 missile attack carried out by an IAF combat helicopter; Salah Shahadeh, who dispatched the terrorist who gunned down five young cadets at the Atzmona pre-military boarding camp; and Abdullah Kawasme, who was responsible for multiple attacks, among them the deadly infiltration of the Adora settlement on April 27, 2002 that resulted in the deaths of four people, including five-year-old Daniel Shefi, and the infiltration of the settlement of Karmi Tzur, where three people — Eyal and Yael Soreq and one other — were murdered.

Karim Rateb Yunis Awis was also released as a gesture of goodwill toward the Palestinians. Afterward, he dispatched two terrorists who took the lives of Michal Mor and Noam Guzovsky and wounded 84 others in the Afula central bus station.

Nasser Abu Khameid is perhaps the released terrorist who did the most damage after his incarceration. Abu Khameid was given five life sentences for the murder of five Palestinian collaborators. He was freed in September 1999 as part of the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement. After the outbreak of the Second Intifada, he was captured on tape mutilating the bodies of murdered IDF reservists Vadim Nurzhits and Yossi Avrahami.

In December 2000, he murdered Binyamin and Talia Kahane near the settlement of Ofra and Eli Cohen near Pisgat Ze’ev. In February 2002, he was involved in planning the attack that killed policewoman Galit Arviv in Neve Yaakov. He also commanded the cell that murdered Gadi Rejwan in the Atarot industrial zone of north Jerusalem. In March 2002, Abu Khameid masterminded the car bomb attack on the Sea Food Market restaurant which killed three Israelis.

In December 2002, Abu Khameid was sentenced to seven life terms after he was convicted in the murder of seven Israelis. In handing down their sentence, the judges of his military tribunal noted that “the gesture that was made [in which he was released] was unjustified, and it led to the killing of more innocent civilians. The defendant’s risk to the public safety was clear after he was convicted of murder in the past. There is an obvious need to keep him away from civilized society forever. After his release, the defendant proved that the gesture was unjustified, and the steep price is being paid by many Israeli families.”

Indeed, the list is too long to count, but the bottom line is clear. Since 1985, Israel has released thousands of terrorists within the framework of agreements, gestures, and diplomatic outlines. Hundreds of Israelis have already been killed by freed terrorists and 3,000 more have been maimed. The 1,150 terrorists freed as part of the Jibril exchange went on to serve as the backbone of the leadership during the first intifada.

“It’s just a matter of time”

According to statistics compiled by the Defense Ministry, 114 terrorists in a sample size of 238 terrorists released in the Jibril exchange resumed their activities after their release. At least half of the 7,000 terrorists freed following the signing of the Oslo Accords were reinstated into terrorist organizations and took an active role in the second intifada. Dozens of the terrorists freed in the Elhanan Tanenbaum exchange resumed their hostile activities. By April 2007, they had managed to slaughter 37 Israelis.

Shin Bet Chief Yoram Cohen, who supported the Shalit exchange two years ago, bravely acknowledged the fact that 60 percent of those released resume terrorist activities and 12 percent return to prison. This formula is once again repeating itself, only this time Israel continues to release terrorists, with the third batch of convicts set to be freed early next week as part of the gestures to the Palestinian Authority.

Both the recent wave of “grassroots” terrorism (stone-throwers, stabbings, and firebombs) and the more lethal variety have still not been totally neutralized. Still, when it comes to the general atmosphere on the Palestinian street and the legitimacy for armed struggle, the release of terrorists simply pours more oil on the bonfire.

The major figures who are coordinating Hamas’ terrorist activity in Judea and Samaria are operating out of Gaza and abroad. The most senior of these figures is Salah Aruri, who was placed in administrative detention and deported a year before the Shalit deal. Today, his base of operations is in Turkey. Alongside Aruri is Abdel el-Raham Ranimat, an operative who was a member of the Tzurif cell of Hamas terrorists that was active in Hebron in the 1990s.

Ranimat, who was on Israel’s wanted list for 10 years before he was apprehended, was convicted for his role in the terrorist attack on the Apropo coffee house in Tel Aviv on the Jewish holiday of Purim in 1997. Three women (attorney Anat Rosen-Vinter, Dr. Michal Meidan-Avrahami, and social worker Yael Gilad) were killed in that attack. Ranimat was also wanted in connection with the kidnapping and murder of IDF soldier Sharon Edri.

Another senior terrorist operative is Mazen Fukha, who was convicted of dispatching the suicide bomber that killed nine Israelis on a bus at Meron Junction in 2002.

These three men are following in the footsteps of other mass murders of Israelis who were released from prison and left a lengthy trail of blood and fire: Ayhab Abu Salim, who blew himself up and killed nine soldiers at the Tzrifin military encampment just six months after his release from administrative detention; Abbas Mahmed Mustafa Alsaid, who was freed in 1996 and convicted in 2005 for the murder of 35 people and the maiming of hundreds of others in two separate attacks — the Park Hotel attack in Netanya and the attack on the Sharon shopping mall in Netanya; Musab Hashalmon, the Hamas operative who on Aug. 31, 2004, just six months after his release in the Tanenbaum deal, was involved in the terrorist atrocities that targeted two buses in Beersheba. Sixteen people died in those attacks and over 100 were wounded.

Will the most recently freed prisoners which the Palestinian Authority insisted on letting out as a precondition for its participation in negotiations with Israel also return to the path of terrorism? An experienced defense source believes that despite their relatively advanced age — these are men who perpetrated their acts of murder before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 — “it’s only a matter of time.”

“Many of the terrorists are now being honored and decorated in public ceremonies organized by the Palestinian Authority and their deeds are being presented as a badge of honor and an example for the next generation of youth to emulate,” the source said. “There’s no sign of remorse over their horrific, murderous actions that these people committed.”

“Just recently, the PA’s religious affairs minister, Mahmoud al-Habash, used his Friday sermon to describe the late Hamas leader who was responsible for terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of hundreds of Israelis, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, as a symbol and a vaunted national figure, a subject for Palestinian children to study as it relates to his ‘legacy, morality, jihad, and his actions’.”

Are not the U.S. — which compels Israel to release terrorists — and Israel — which accedes — aware of the significance of these facts?

“Everyone is aware of it,” the source said. “For whatever reason, everyone believes that this time it will be different and they are convinced that the experiences of the past taught us to better cope with the released terrorists this time around. Personally, as someone who has interrogated terrorists in the past, I will be convinced of this only if I hear the released terrorists sing a different tune, namely talk about peace and the renouncing of the armed struggle. As long as these things aren’t being said, it seems that sooner or later we will see more terrorism involving released prisoners.”