Schlaglicht Israel Nr. 21 Annapolis Spezial Aktuelles aus israelischen Tageszeitungen 12. November – 25. November 2007 1. Stärkung von Präsident Abbas Am kommenden Dienstag, den 27. Novmber 2007, soll das von Präsident George Bush verkündete und von seiner Außenministerin Condoleezza Rice entworfene„Nahost-Treffen“ stattfinden, das manche schon zu einer„Nahostfriedenskonferenz“ hochstilisiert haben. Israel versucht, sich mit Gesten zur Stärkung von Präsident Abbas, in ein positives Licht zu rücken. Dazu gehört die beschlossene Freilassung von 411 palästinensischen Gefangenen (von mindestens 12.000 in den Gefängnissen) und die Räumung von 25 Strassensperren(von weit über 400). Gegen den Rat der Militärs genehmigte Olmert zudem den Import von 50 russischen Panzerwagen für die palästinensische Polizei. Diese Schützenpanzer sollen in Nablus gegen „Terroristen“ eingesetzt werden und den Abbas­treuen Streitkräften helfen,„effektiv“ zu sein. A gesture to the Prisons Service “The release of another 440 Palestinian prisoners is a nice gesture to the Israel Prisons Service. It lessens the terrible overcrowding in the jails, albeit only slightly. And it eases the burden on the security establishment, which has not completely succeeded in avoiding its obligation to allow some family members to visit their loved ones once every two weeks. […] During the 1990s, Israel released some 10,000 Palestinian prisoners within the framework of the Oslo accords. Just as it was in Ireland and South Africa, that is the accepted practice: When, in a struggle against national repression, the parties agree to make peace, the occupying party recognizes that the violence of the prisoners it releases was a response to its own violence. This is not a gesture, but a necessary step toward a solution. The released Palestinians included almost all of those who had been convicted of murdering other Palestinians?(due to suspicions that they were collaborators?). But Israel refused to release Palestinians who had been convicted of murdering Jews. It also refused to release detainees from East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights or Israel. Some 84 prisoners who belong to these four categories have already been in prison between 18 and 30 years, serving life sentences that will end only with their own deaths.” Amira Hass, HAA, 21.11.2007 An endless pool of prisoners "Why is Israel releasing 440 Palestinian prisoners specifically ahead of the Annapolis conference, and not 500 or 300, or 2,000 as the United States had expected? The impression is that no one is exercised by the security risk entailed in releasing prisoners- aside from politicians who want to make political capital off of it- and that all the wheeling and dealing revolves around the question of how many prisoners"are worth wasting" on this or that event. This regular game with the fate of people- some 10,000 of them- who are incarcerated in Israel, taking no account of the length of their prison sentences but only the political utility their fate can serve, warps Israel's image as a law-abiding state. If at any given moment there is a pool of candidates for release, it stands to reason they could have been released long ago. The impression created is that Israel's prisons have become a gestures bank with revolving doors: At night they arrest dozens of wanted gunmen and in 1