It is about time that Israel dropped its charade of wanting a lasting peace agreement with Palestinians. That is simply not the case now — and most probably not as long as the right-wing hawks like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government hold the reins of power and occupation. The latest proof of this comes with a recommendation by a Knesset parliamentary committee that changes the sentencing guidelines for Palestinians unjustly held in Israeli jails.
The committee wants life sentences to mean life. If this errant and misguided policy is adopted, it means that this class of Palestinians will be exempt from any future prisoner releases as a precursor to talks.
Even then, given that Israeli authorities have gone back on previous agreements over prisoner releases, there seems little hope under current conditions for that to occur anyway.
In every conflict where a long-term and lasting peace has been negotiated, the planned release of prisoners who committed crimes out of political motivation has always been — and must be — a keystone for ending strife.
As it stands now, there are some 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. And one tenth of these are being held indefinitely under administrative detention.
They are imprisoned in cells without any prospect of bail, release or even knowing what they are accused of, denied the most basic natural justice, deprived of due process of law in a judicial system stacked against them. That is simply criminal.
