Under pressure to restart talks with Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, Israel has diverged from its refusal to accede to preconditions and agreed to free 104 terrorists from its jails. It’s a mistake. Israel should withstand the pressure and say no. Why? Because it makes a mockery of justice – and inflicts unimaginable pain on families of the victims – when murderers walk free. It boosts the standing of terrorist groups and encourages the kidnapping of Israelis for the purpose of extorting the release of further terrorists.

It demoralizes Israeli counter-terrorism personnel who risk life and limb to capture these murderers and erodes Israeli deterrence to vanishing point when the most bloodthirsty murderers know they are likely to be freed early. Above all, it results in the subsequent murder of additional Israelis by terrorists freed under such deals.

In short, we’ve been here before and the results have been inarguably tragic. The Almagor Terrorist Victims Association disclosed in April 2007 that 177 Israelis who died in terror attacks in the previous five years had been killed by terrorists freed from Israeli jails. An earlier Almagor report showed that 123 Israelis were murdered by terrorists freed during between 1993 and 1999. Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan has observed that the terrorists released in the 2004 Elhanan Tenenbaum prisoner exchange deal caused the death of 231 Israelis. Read more…