Arab terrorists live it up in Israeli prisons with workouts, entertainment, diplomatic visits

Entertainment centers and exercise equipment, visits by diplomats and no oversight on books they read are some of the “perks” Arab terrorists enjoy.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Security prisoners in Israeli prisons are not exactly languishing as they serve time for terrorist acts, according to a just-released Israel Prison Service (IPS) report.

For example, over a hundred different exercise machines and several entertainment centers were recently distributed among the security wings, it said.

Each prisoner is also allowed to subscribe to one newspaper and one magazine “published in Israel.” This presumably includes pro-Palestinian Arab papers published in Jerusalem.

The report also noted that the names of diplomatic and consular officials who visit these prisoners will now be registered – something that has not been done until now. The security implications of this oversight is completely unknown.

The names of Israeli Knesset members who have paid terrorists a call in jail have been passed along to the Knesset’s legal adviser since 2010, but not the identities of whom they visited.

MK Basel Ghattas of the Arab Joint List was sentenced to two years in prison in 2017 for smuggling cellphones to Palestinian security prisoners.

In addition, the IPS report said the prison service didn’t know what books terrorist prisoners were reading after funding was cut for the computer program that registered books.

Visitation rights are more restricted. While some security prisoners get to see their families twice a month, Hamas and Islamic Jihad prisoners are only allowed monthly visits. Since 2017, those from the Gaza Strip get none at all, following an order from Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan that was upheld in January by Israel’s High Court of Justice.

This was done to put pressure on Hamas to release the bodies of two soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul and two mentally ill men who went over the Gaza border in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

Erdan also vowed to limit the terrorists’ water privileges, among other restrictions, as he said they used “five times the amount of the average Israeli citizen” to purposely cause harm to the state, which is constantly short of water.

The IPS was forced to release these details in response to a Freedom of Information petition filed by the pro-Zionist organization Im Tirtzu

Im Tirtzu head Matan Peleg told the Mako news site that prison conditions resembled a “hotel.”

“It’s shameful to see the great conditions that terrorists get in Israeli prisons, paid for by the Israeli public,” he said, adding that it’s time for the government “to approve the recommendations of Minster Erdan’s committee to stop the terrorists’ partying in prisons.”

The IPS report said it was supplying the prisoners what was required by law.