One can understand the feelings of a bereaved Jewish mother who demonstrates in the town square against the release from prison of her son’s killer, or the crying of an Israeli youth orphaned when a Palestinian murderer planted a bomb on a bus. Nothing compares to their pain, and yet, it’s also possible to understand the feelings of a Palestinian mother whose son has still not come home from jail even though the Oslo Accord was supposed to bring an historic reconciliation with the State of Israel 20 years ago. One should also commiserate with the Palestinian girl who has never been embraced by her father’s arms. But revenge is no consolation.

Bonds cannot imprison the yearning of a people for freedom. Ten life sentences will not put an end to the violence of a people struggling to be free of the shackles of occupation. The politician and shapers of public opinion who oppose the release of Palestinian prisoners in order to enable progress toward a diplomatic agreement and an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, would do well to read the words written by former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela, probably the world’s most famous political prisoner.

In an April 1969 letter from his prison cell to South Africa’s justice minister, Mandela wrote, “We are not pleading for mercy but are exercising the inherent right of all people incarcerated for their political beliefs … All of us, without exception, were convicted and sentenced for political activities which we embarked upon as part and parcel of our struggle to win for our people the right of self-determination, acknowledged throughout the civilized world as the inalienable birthright of all human beings.”

Mandela, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with Frederik Willem de Klerk in 1993, the same year that Israelis and Palestinian signed the Oslo Accord, claimed that resorting to violence was the unavoidable choice of freedom fighters whose bravery stemmed from the courage of their convictions. “No men of principle and integrity could have done otherwise. To have folded arms would have been an act of surrender to a government of minority rule and a betrayal of our cause,” Mandela noted, adding, “The only way to avert disaster is not to keep innocent men in jail but to abandon your provocative actions and to pursue sane and enlightened policies.”