Israel will not release prisoners

I'm glad to see sanity has returned to Israel, why release prisoners when the Palestinians have one of your men.

Israel has rebuffed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' request to free Palestinian prisoners ahead of a major Muslim holiday, insisting that Palestinian militants first agree to release a captured Israeli soldier.

The decision was at odds with recent overtures by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to bolster the moderate Abbas in the eyes of the Palestinian people, who voted the militantly anti-Israel Hamas group into power nearly one year ago.

Israel has made concessions already, why should they be the ones making all the moves when they are getting nothing in return:

In their landmark meeting on Saturday, Olmert agreed to ease restrictions on Palestinian travel in the West Bank and to release $100 million in frozen funds to the Palestinian Authority — moves that touched off opposition among hard-liners in Israel.

And I don't have a lot of sympathy for the families of the prisoners since this is the type of people they are waiting for:

Palestinians had hoped Israel would allow the return of 13 gunmen exiled to Europe following a standoff with Israeli troops at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity in 2002.

And this is just weird:

Fawzi el-Muhanna, whose son Mohammed was exiled to Greece, told The Associated Press he had prepared to hang festive lights and slaughter a sheep to celebrate both the holiday and his son's return. "We were optimistic," al-Muhanna said.