QUESTION: When is an arrest not an arrest? Answer: When the person being arrested is a Palestinian terrorist and the arresting agency is the Palestinian Authority.
When it comes to terrorists, Palestinian jails are very similar to those used on the Big Rock Candy Mountain – the land of fantasy where, according to the old folk song, “The jails are made of tin. You can slip right out again, as soon as they put you in.” You can be sure that any Palestinian terrorist arrested by the PA will go free sooner or later – and usually sooner.
This uncomfortable fact helps explain why, only hours after President Bush called Yasser Arafat’s stated determination on Wednesday to go after terrorists “incredibly positive,” the administration sounded so suspicious of the PA’s announcement that it had arrested 16 members of Hamas.
“We’re looking into the reports of the arrests,” said Ari Fleischer, the president’s spokesman. “I don’t have anything really beyond what we’ve heard – that they allegedly have been arrested.”
As Fleischer was speaking, the leaders of Hamas – who are the ones responsible for the decision to commit mass murder at an Israeli pool hall on Tuesday night – were going about their daily business in Gaza. According to the Associated Press, “One leader, Mahmoud Zahar, a lecturer at Gaza City’s Islamic University, said he was busy preparing for weekend exams, and two others . . . said they had scheduled back-to-back media interviews.”
In other words, the 16 Hamas members arrested by the PA were simply low-level scapegoats. But even the scapegoats have no need to worry, because they know what Ari Fleischer and his boss both know: They’ll either be released in a few days or, following some kind of trial, simply walk out of their jail cells into the open air.
Prison breaks in Palestinian territories are perhaps the least daring in world history, since it appears the jailers literally leave cell doors open and then go have a convenient smoke.
Here are some examples, collected in part from the files of the invaluable Washington Institute on Near East Policy:
Ibrahim Makadmeh: The leader of Hamas’ military wing was first released from PA jail in March 1997 and then supposedly sought for arrest almost immediately afterward by the PA for colluding in a Tel Aviv café bombing. But in November 1997, the PA dropped the warrant against Makadmeh and let him live happily and murderously in Gaza. They arrested him every now and then after that, and released him for good once the intifada started in October 2000.
As ABC News, hardly a friend to Israel, put it on Oct. 12, 2000: “About 350 prisoners were freed in Gaza City, including scores of Islamic militants. Thirty-five were released in Nablus and dozens were set free in the West Bank town of Hebron.”
Abdel Nasser al-Qaisi: He killed an Israeli woman and her son in 1996, and was given a life sentence by the PA. In June 1997, he escaped from a jail in Jericho.
Abd al-Rahman Ghneimat: Another Hamas-nik, Ghneimat walked out of a PA cell in Hebron in July 1997.
There are literally hundreds of other such cases. In October 1997 alone, as the Washington Institute notes, “the PA reportedly released 38 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members” involved in bombings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
So the 16 Hamas monsters have no cause to worry about their current predicament. After all, they’re living on Yasser Arafat’s Big Rock Candy Mountain, “the land of milk and honey where a bum can stay for many a day” while he plans the slaughter of Jews.
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