Israel holds practically an endless supply of Palestinians and Lebanese as hostages and “bargaining chips,” without charges.  From time to time it releases some as “goodwill” gestures.

However, when an Israeli soldier gets captured, he is called a hostage, not a POW.  Interesting how that works.

Well Israel doesn’t acknowledge Palestinians as human beings, so the issue of humanitarian gesture is out of question. I can provide you a big list how the Israeli leaders see the Palestinians. It will bring a chill down the spine of decent people! But I’d rather skip that part for the sake of brevity and lack of time. 

But in these days of food and fuel high cost, this is purely an economic measure to cut spending on feeding and energy costs of running prisons.

Additionally, with the untold numbers of walls and checkpoints they erected everywhere in the occupied territories, the whole land is a really large scale prison for the natives, so why spend more money on minor prisons that cost money to run?!

Well, isn’t this generous of Israel to free a measly 200 prisoners, while keeping at least 9,000 behind razor wire and God knows how they’re being treated. This of course will be all over the corporate media showing what great humanitarians the Zionists are. Shame on Israel for their less than humane gesture.

So.  It’s a distraction.