Once again the PA (Palestinian Authority) is seeking to exact a price from Israel, a prerequisite to the resumption of diplomatic talks. PA officials are demanding the release of 120 terrorists imprisoned by Israel, including some with “blood on their hands” from their acts of murder, terrorists serving life sentences.

MK (Bayit Yehudi) Orit Struk in her Knesset query posits the United States is applying pressure on Israel to approve the prisoner release. The Almagor terror victims association on Monday 12 Iyar 5773 released the names of the 120 slated for release.

That list includes the terrorist who hurled the firebomb at a bus near Yericho which led to the deaths of Rochel Weiss and her three children as well as an IDF soldier HY”D. Also appearing on the list is the terrorist who in 1986 placed a bomb on an 18 bus that murdered six people HY”D and left others injured and maimed.

While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has stated repeatedly Israel is willing to return to the negotiating table immediately, without preconditions, he has made so-called good-will gestures of this nature in the past.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)