Palestinian Authority officials reportedly asked the government Monday to delay the release of 230 terrorist prisoners by one week in order to allow time for PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to return from his pilgrimage to Mecca.
Abbas, who is scheduled to have lunch with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Tuesday, is not expected to return to Ramallah until at least Thursday. The PA chairman wants to be present to greet the freed terrorists and reap the benefits of the "photo op" when they cross into the PA from pre-1967 Israel.
Sources in Jerusalem said the new release date is set for December 15.
The Ministerial Prisoner Release Committee on Sunday rubber-stamped Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision last month to free most of a list of 250 security prisoners in another "goodwill gesture" to PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas. However, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter had also said he opposed the move.
The release was set to take place on Tuesday, the second day of the three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, the Festival of the Sacrifice.
The Almagor Victims of Terror Association and Land of Israel Legal Forum said in their petition to the court that the decision by a "transitional government," two months before elections, is an irreversible step that must be left to the country's next leaders.
The petition was filed on behalf of Moshe Muskal, an activist who lost a son in the Second Lebanon War and whose second son is currently serving in an IDF combat unit. The suit was filed on behalf of Muskal and other parents and claims that releasing the terrorists will put his son and other soldiers in danger as they carry out counterterrorism activities.
"We want the court to decide which is more important," explained Lt.-Col. (res.) Meir Indor, director of Almagor, "the political value of the relationship with the Palestinians, or the life of the child – the soldier who is forced to go out and catch the terrorists again."
"We believe the transitional government does not have the right to sacrifice the life of soldiers and civilians for this purpose," he said.
Many of the terrorists on the list were convicted for attempted murder, Indor told Israel National News. "A large number of them have been sitting in jail for only two years. Some of them were not the actual terrorists whose finger was on the trigger, but the finger was on the budget, and the training and the organizing," he went on, "so still they tried to kill."
By releasing hundreds of terrorists in repeated "goodwill gestures" that bring no reciprocal concessions, "the government destroys years of work, nights and days of work, sacrificing the lives of soldiers and commanders to catch the terrorists," Indor said.
He added that as the transitional government approaches the zero hour in which its existence will end, "they are becoming more and more dangerous to themselves and to the public."