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In-Depth Coverage

Original Commentaries

11/20/08
Pakistan: Learning the Right Lessons from Iraq  —Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA), Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Original Commentary for Middle East Bulletin.
11/13/08
The View from Gaza  —Taghreed El-Khodary, New York Times journalist in Gaza and Harvard University Nieman Fellow (2005-2006). Interviewed by Middle East Bulletin.
11/04/08
Getting on the Right Track  —Dalia Rabin, chairperson, Rabin Center, and daughter of the late Yitzhak Rabin. Interview with Middle East Bulletin.

Setting the Record Straight

Keeping Focus on Long-Term Objectives

“[W]hile we do need to have a cooperative approach that involves many of our friends and allies in meeting with the Pakistanis, … as we work out with them a rough division of labor, the U.S., I believe, ought to be taking the lead in addressing the issues in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. And given the difficulty of doing so, I suspect that we will not have a great deal of difficulty in convincing them to allow us to take the lead there. But as we all know, there is a real tension between our short-term tactical aims in trying to capture or kill terrorists across the border and militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and our longer- term counterinsurgency pacification goals. We very much need to be focusing on the end state. What is it that we want this area to look like? ... In that context we need to have a common agenda with the Pakistani government and very much to include the military on counterinsurgency in that area. There needs to be, therefore, a focus on combining military efforts with economic, development and political development in those areas.”
—Robert L. Grenier, managing director and chairman for Global Security Consulting, Kroll, event, “Partnership for Progress: Advancing a New Strategy for Prosperity and Stability in Pakistan and the Region,” Center for American Progress, November 17, 2008

Middle East Analysis

The Issue of Prisoner Release

By General (Ret.) Orit Adato, former commissioner of the Israel Prison Service, updated for the Middle East Bulletin. Published originally in Bitterlemons.

Israel’s announced release of 87 Palestinian prisoners as part of an effort to bolster Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas incited an old internal Israeli debate on the likely consequences of the release of “security inmates." A broader look at the issue of security prisoners suggests that a breakthrough in this area can serve as an impetus for the whole peace process. Examining Northern Ireland’s experience sheds light on a few relevant aspects of this issue and how it relates to the risks and challenges accompanying the process unfolding between the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

First, the Irish "political" prisoners were of decisive importance in formulating peace agreements. Without their release and approval, the Irish peace agreement would probably not have emerged. Accordingly, an appreciation of the relative weight and status held by the prisoners in the eyes of British and Irish decision-makers was a turning point in the entire process. Further, the legal redefinition of the prisoners prior to their release as, for all intents and purposes, criminals, required a far-reaching conceptual, emotional and legal change of approach, insofar as it encountered massive opposition on the part of the public-at-large and the victims’ families that crossed both Protestant and Catholic fault-lines.

Recognition of the need to release prisoners involved in violent and murderous acts was not the result of a South Africa-style reconciliation process. Rather, it derived directly from a strong societal sense among the conflicted populations that further reliance on violence was politically pointless, and from a strategic political decision in London and Dublin to back off from unconditional support for their respective forces and enter a process that would put an end to the violent conflict.

In the Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998, the sides agreed to an accelerated program of prisoner release. Prisoners would be released gradually, based on the severity of their crimes and time remaining in their sentence. Prisoners belonging to organizations that did not agree to the ceasefire would only be released at a later stage, following a reassessment. The legal status of the prisoner release process would determine the rights and obligations of freed prisoners, while the Irish and British governments would act to re-integrate prisoners into society both before and after release using financial support, vocational training and placement, and education.

Prisoner release had a strong influence on the ceasefire; it took place despite the huge obstacles presented by the families of victims. While difficulties remain, the conflicted parties are trying to solve problems by negotiations and are educating the younger generation to follow the path of peace rather than, like their parents, armed struggle. While there is still a lack of trust between the two sides, both are pledged to create the conditions for the restoration of peace and stability in the country.

Moreover, the victims’ families received emotional and physical support as mandated by law. There is also an ongoing effort to bring victims’ and released prisoners’ organizations together in dialogue.

The parallels between what has happened in Ireland and the Israeli-Palestinian experience are greater than might be expected.

As in Northern Ireland, a considerable portion of the active leadership in the Palestinian Authority in recent years is composed of former security prisoners who "paid" the price of their people’s struggle and now hold senior positions and enjoy public prestige. The Palestinian demand to release prisoners derives from a genuine need for public opinion to approve the reconciliation process. Security prisoners exercise significant influence over the Palestinian leadership and the "street", particularly when Mahmoud Abbas’ leadership is in desperate need of public support ahead of the upcoming November international conference. This need is further augmented by the impasse between Fatah and Hamas. Thus, the prisoners’ moderating influence within the near environment of President Mahmoud Abbas could be critical.

At the same time, we must bear in mind that some of the security prisoners freed in the past returned to the path of terrorism; indeed, they left prison more extreme and better equipped with extreme ideologically and "professionally".

As it progresses, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has required and will continue to require goodwill gestures, confidence building measures and genuine concessions, including the release of security prisoners. As matters currently stand, international involvement will increase, and will demand that both leaderships prove by their actions their dedication and readiness to proceed. Prisoner release is undoubtedly a complex and sensitive issue. On the one hand it provokes an ethical and emotional debate among both politicians and common citizens; on the other, it could prove to be less difficult if implemented as part of a comprehensive plan that requires reciprocity between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, including a Palestinian undertaking to engage in rehabilitation and supervision.

The change of Palestinian leadership and the international and particularly American expectations of the leaders on both sides should enable us to implement an unprecedented process: a comprehensive and graduated plan for dealing with the issue of security prisoners, comprising both short- and long-term steps, and conditioned on full partnership and a genuine acceptance of responsibility by the Palestinian Authority with regard to its share in the process.

One main aspect of the process would be a public statement by the PA leadership, taking responsibility for the release process and for formulating a comprehensive plan for supervision and rehabilitation of released prisoners. The plan would be presented to the public and supported rhetorically and financially by the international community. It would comprise parole-officer-type supervision and a study and vocational training program, along with a public appeal by the PA leadership to prisoner leaders in prisons to openly declare their intention of moving from armed struggle and attempts to launch terrorist attacks, which they often continue from inside prison, to a political process.

For its part, the Israeli security establishment would redefine the "blood on their hands" criteria and reclassify the security prisoners’ population into sub-groups based on ideological and military involvement prior to imprisonment and their motivation to abandon this struggle in order to begin to create new criteria for dealing with their future.

According to the new criteria, Israel would prepare in advance lists of potential prisoners to be released, giving the latter incentives to moderate their behavior. Following a release of an agreed upon number of prisoners, an international supervision mechanism would review, within a period of time lasting between six months and a year, the rehabilitation process. A positive assessment would legitimize in the eyes of the Israeli public an additional release of prisoners.

The conceptual breakthrough presented here requires suitable preparation and a gradual approach as well as reciprocity and cooperation rather than unilateral steps, convenient as they often are. This is the order of the day: it opens the way to building mutual commitments and can be approached in steps linked in part to interim results. And it could attract the support of the international community.

It is far better to invest some considered judgment in this issue in advance rather than have to react to circumstances, usually under heavy external pressures and constraints.