“They are terrorist criminal prisoners, not ‘political’ prisoners,” stated Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America.
By Mike Wagenheim
(October 6, 2025) Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, referred on Monday to convicted Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons, including those with blood on their hands, as “political prisoners” during a press briefing.
Leavitt confirmed that Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy for special missions, and Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former senior adviser, are in Egypt to lead technical talks with Israel and Hamas on implementing the peace plan Trump unveiled last week.
Leavitt said that Hamas’s conditional acceptance of the plan on Friday is “truly remarkable” and that the “administration is working very hard to move the ball forward as quickly as we can.”
“The president wants to see a ceasefire. He wants to see the hostages released, and the technical teams are discussing that as we speak, to ensure that the environment is perfect to release those hostages,” she said.
“They’re going over the list of both the Israeli hostages and also the political prisoners who will be released,” she said.
Anti-Israel critics often refer to the Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails as “political prisoners.” The jailed Palestinians have been convicted, often with overwhelming evidence, of murdering Israeli civilians and other terror acts.
Israel calls them “security prisoners,” and the United States has historically used that same term.
JNS sought comment from the White House and the Israeli embassy in Washington. The U.S. State Department directed JNS to the White House.
Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, said it was a “disgrace” that Leavitt referred to “political prisoners.”
“They are terrorist criminal prisoners, not ‘political’ prisoners,” he said. “She must retract this monstrous mistake immediately.”
This article was originally published in JNS and can be viewed here.