Danon: I'll quit over Palestinian prisoner release

Israel’s Deputy Defence Minister Danny Danon has threatened to resign if Palestinian prisoners are released at the end of the month.

In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Danon said: “I have come to a decision: I will not be part of the executive branch – the cabinet – if it approves and goes through with an additional prisoner release as part of the ‘fourth round’ that is supposed to take place on the 28th of this month.”

He claimed “the Palestinians took advantage, and not for the first time, of our desire for peace and naivete, to trick us. They pretended to negotiate, and we released vile murderers.”

During a meeting with families of Israeli causalities, he was quoted as saying: “I will not sit in a government that releases terrorists in exchange for the fantasies of Tzipi Livni [Israel’s chief negotiator]. There is a limit to how often you can be suckers for Livni and [chief Palestinian negotiator] Erekat’s smiles.”

He also said in his letter that the Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas said that he is not ready to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. Danon said he expects the Israeli government to inform the PA that it would halt the process of releasing prisoners.

He threatened to resign the day any Palestinian prisoner is released saying: “The day that the first Palestinian murderer walks free from prison, I will submit a letter of resignation from my post of deputy defence minister of the Israeli government.”

In the context of the renewal of negotiations between Israel and the PA, Israel has committed itself to the release, through four phases, of more than one hundred prisoners who have been in prison since before the Oslo Accords.