"If drug and sex-crime convicts can request pardons, and with hundreds of terrorists having been freed, it would seem to be right to provide some balance and pardon some Jews as well." So says Shlomi Dvir, a Jewish father from Gush Etzion who has completed six years of his 15-year prison sentence.
Dvir was convicted of having conspired to bomb an Arab school in eastern Jerusalem in response to the wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks in 2001 and 2002 in which hundreds of Jews were murdered.
Dvir was convicted together with two other co-conspirators; they never denied involvement in the case, but rather said that the bomb was never meant to go off. Atty. Naftali Wurtzberger said at the time that it was clear that the bomb could not have gone off, "but the question is whether the defendants did this purposely or accidentally. The court entered the realm of 'intentions' by saying that this was done only accidentally."
Speaking with Arutz-7's Yigal Shok and Uzi Baruch by phone from Ayalon Prison, Dvir said he and the five other "Jewish security prisoners" in the religious wing of the prison have submitted a request for a pardon in honor of Israel's upcoming 60th anniversary. The other five include Ofer Gamliel - father of seven who has been allowed out of prison exactly five times during his six years - as well as the two Harel brothers, who were sentenced to 30 and 40 months in prison, respectively, for planning an anti-Disengagement road blocking in 2005.
Yarden Morag, who was convicted together with Gamliel and Dvir, is in the lower-security Maasiyahu Prison in Ramle, because he is treated like other prisoners and is allowed vacations. "The Shabak (General Security Service) refuses to allow us to leave the prison," Dvir said, "even for the most humanitarian of reasons. I recently asked to be able to visit my grandfather, whose health has gravely deteriorated. The judge couldn't understand why they were giving me such a hard time, and was about to grant my request, when all of a sudden a Shabak guy made a special trip to court to present some supposedly secret evidence, and the judge suddenly refused my request."
Dvir was also not allowed to attend his brother's wedding last year, though he was allowed out - for three hours at a time - when each of his last two children were born.
The Jewish legal rights organization Honenu has been in the forefront of fighting for the legal rights of Jewish security prisoners, Jews arrested for having shot at Arabs in self-defense, and Jews facing legal problems for having protested on behalf of the Land of Israel.
In response to a question, Dvir said he regrets his actions: "My mistake was in not realizing that acts of nationalist nature should not be done by individuals, but rather by the government."
To sign a petition (in Hebrew) asking President Peres to pardon the Jewish security prisoners, click here: http://www.atzuma.co.il/petition/thkbh1/1/