Few ones care after captives released

Despite 2011 when 1027 Palestinians were freed from the Zionist jails full of pride in return for the release of the seized Israeli soldier Guilad Shalit, the release of 26 Palestinian captives never unleashed a similar euphoria, the Daily Beast noted on Tuesday.

Maysoon Zayid wrote in the article that as part of its deal with the Palestinian Authority, Israel gets to pick and choose who goes home, when, and where to.

"It has decided to break the group of old timers into four sub-groups and with each successful meeting another handful of them get to go home. If negotiations fall apart, Israel is no longer required to honor its commitment and those left behind will be out of luck until the next time the "peace talks" farce is repeated."

The author downplayed the release and said that in reality, the only Palestinians who give a hoot about the paltry 26 prisoners freed are their immediate families.

"Even they acknowledge that they are being used by the negotiators," he said, adding the other 7 million Palestinians are too busy trying to survive the constant Israeli incursions, house demolitions, and lack of basic human rights to care about Netanyahu's PR move.

The author quoted a gaggle of 20- to 80-year-olds in Ramallah as voicing disgust at the fact that Israel had complete control over the prisoner release and that the PA head Mahmoud Abbas and company had not objected to Israel’s insistence on releasing the prisoners in waves rather than all at once.

"They also pointed out that for every prisoner released, Israel had already scooped up a handful of fresh meat to take their place and that most of those released were going back to Gaza," the author quoted them as saying in fury.

"Israel purposely chose to release a large number of the convicts from Gaza because it knows that living there is just like being in prison anyway," the author went on to say.