Ramallah, 11-07-07: A report by Ma‘an News today that Israel has arrested 300 Fatah affiliates in the past two weeks confirms that an eventual liberation of 250 prisoners by Israel would be a farce. In recent weeks, PNI head Dr. Barghouthi MP repeatedly warned against giving credit to this empty "goodwill gesture", and denounced the promise to liberate 250 prisoners from Fatah as a sham, while more than 11,000 prisoners, including 376 children and 105 women are still held in Israeli jails. Israel has also detained 42 elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, in what Dr. Barghouthi termed "an assault on Palestinian democracy".
This "goodwill gesture" was promised by Israel after the Sharm El-Sheikh meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday 25 June. Yet in the following days and weeks Olmert‘s cabinet held back and stalled any decision to release prisoners while the Israeli army attacked, killed and arrested Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Dr. Barghouthi said that the current Israeli policy of pretending to bolster the Emergency Government in the West Bank through releasing prisoners while in fact continuing a relentless arrest campaign proves the true intent of Israel. He added that Olmert‘s government is playing a game of smoke and mirrors while seeking to exploit current Palestinian internal divisions, with the aim of consolidating the complete separation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and thereby undermining the creation of a viable Palestinian state within 1967 borders. He added that Israel has no interest in peace and no respect for international law, and called for Palestinians to unite in search of a democratic exit to the current crisis.