Analysis: Prisoner swap scores points at home

TODAY’S scheduled swap of Hamas-held Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for 477 Palestinian prisoners is an unprecedented marriage of convenience of the hard-liners: the militant Islamic group that still espouses Israel’s destruction on the one hand and one of the most right-wing governments in Israeli history on the other.

Despite the mutual enmity, leaders on each side share a common desire to gain points with their respective domestic audiences. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew how strongly Israelis identified with the family of Sgt Shalit, who was seized five years ago in a cross-border raid from Gaza. At the same time, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal knew the plight of the 6,000 prisoners in Israeli jails was highly resonant for Palestinians. Popularity considerations and Egyptian encouragement impelled each of them to agree on the lopsided deal, in which Israel will free a further 550 Palestinian prisoner s in two months.

A crucial consideration for Hamas, analysts say, was a surge in popularity by Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate leader of rival Fatah movement, after he applied for full Palestinian membership of the United Nations last month. “Hamas saw Abbas was rising and this agreement [with Israel] helped them come back as a party who can deliver something to the people,” said Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, director of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs.

While Israel has engaged in such unequal prisoner swaps before, today’s deal marks the highest ratio of Palestinians released for an Israeli in the past 30 years. Hamas leaders have stressed that the deal is a “historic achievement” and that today’s celebrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will amount to a “great national wedding”.

In a blow to already scant peace prospects, Hamas also points to the deal as vindication of its view that armed struggle – and not Mr Abbas’s path of negotiation and diplomacy – is the way to achieve gains from the Israelis and to free prisoners. “Experience shows that 20 years of negotiations have not achieved anything but a dead end,” said Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau. In deference to the armed resistance, Hamas leaders plan to take released prisoners today to visit the Gaza homes of Hamed Rantisi and Mohammed Farawne, two militants killed by the Israeli army during the capture of Sgt Shalit.

In the West Bank, Mr Abbas is due to welcome released prisoners, even as some voices within Fatah try their best to undermine his narrative. Minister of prisoner affairs Issa Qaraqeh has already sniped at Hamas for not fulfilling initial promises to gain the freedom of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti and left-wing faction leader Ahmed Saadat, or to free all women prisoners. Mr Qaraqeh is trying to convince public opinion that Hamas looked after its narrow interests, not those of the Palestinian people as a whole. “Hamas went its separate way and did not consult anyone,” he said.

On the Israeli side, Mr Netanyahu has gained from the fact most Israeli parents send their children to perform mandatory military service and can envision themselves in the place of Sgt Shalit’s parents. Mr Netanyahu hopes to ride the popularity wave by greeting Sgt Shalit when he arrives today at Tel Mond air force base.

“I think he did it entirely to improve his standing domestically,” said Galia Golan, a political scientist at the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya near Tel Aviv. Ms Golan said the deal agreed with Hamas was not substantially different than terms Mr Netanyahu had previously rejected.

In her view, the prime minister sought an achievement to boost his popularity after coming under fire from Israel’s new social protest movement, which has criticised him for glaring income inequalities and in September orchestrated the largest demonstration in Israeli history.