For decades, the United States has urged foreign governments not to free prisoners who have killed Americans. But a man who murdered an American was freed this week by Israel in a prisoner-release deal encouraged by Secretary of State John Kerry.Hold on.
Among those released Tuesday as an inducement to the Palestinian Authority to return to peace negotiations was Al-Haaj Othman Amar Mustafa, a Palestinian convicted in 1991 of killing Frederick Steven Rosenfeld, who the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time of his death reported was a former U.S. Marine and U.S. citizen.
Mustafa was sentenced by an Israeli military court to life after he and two other assailants murdered Rosenfeld in 1989, 21 years after the former Marine emigrated to Israel. According to an Associated Press account of Mustafa’s trial before a military court, Mustafa and two others met Rosenfeld as he was hiking near the settlement where he lived in Ariel. At first, the three men befriended Rosenfeld and even posed for a photo. “Minutes after the picture was taken, the three stabbed Rosenfeld and left him for dead, according to their confession,” the AP dispatch said.
Today Mustafa is a free man, one of 26 Palestinians released from Israeli jails on Tuesday, the first group of a total of 104 prisoners Israel has promised to free in exchange for Palestinian participation in a new peace process. The list of prisoners was negotiated with the Palestinian Authority, at the urging of Secretary Kerry.
Marie Harf, deputy spokesperson for the State Department, told The Daily Beast Thursday, “The State Department conveyed the administration’s concerns regarding the release of this prisoner to the government of Israel, while recognizing the victim was a dual national of Israel and the United States.”
Harf said the Israeli side “acknowledged our views, but it was ultimately their decision to determine which prisoners to release. This is a very difficult situation for all involved, and further highlights the importance of making these negotiations successful.”
The US Secretary of State pressured Israel into releasing 104 terrorists, the first batch of which contained only murderers and accomplices to murder. The position of the State Department's leader is clearly that releasing murderers is essential to the peace process (against all logic.)
But now that one of the victims is found to be American, this thought process is suddenly flawed?
“As I understand the facts, there are only two possibilities,” said Elliott Abrams, a deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration and a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It was a very bad screwup by the State Department not to demand that he remain incarcerated or it is a silent change of policy. I believe the policy has always been that we oppose the release of anyone who has committed terrorism against Americans.”It isn't a change of policy - it was a mistake.
Abrams pointed to U.S. public statements in 2005 after Germany freed Mohammed Ali Hammadi, a member of Hezbollah who participated in the murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem during the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847. When Hammadi was released in 2005, a State Department spokesman said, “We’re going to make every effort to see that he stands trial in the United States for what he did and face justice.”
There is only one possible explanation.
The position of the State Department is that murderers of Americans must never be released, but murderers of Israelis must be released.
The US must never negotiate with terrorists, but Israel must.
The US must track down and attempt to arrest any terrorists who murdered Americans who do get released from prison, but Israel must promise not to do that.
In short, US policy is "Do as I say, even if it is the polar opposite of how I act."
You see, because it is for "peace."