I’ll be damned if I understand the logic behind the list of prisoners who Israel is releasing in advance of the new peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The initial list, which was published on the eve of these talks on Aug. 11, contains 26 out of the 104 prisoners who Israel committed itself to releasing in stages during the talks, based on the progress of the negotiations.

Their release was a precondition for the relaunching of the talks, and was intended to boost Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and bolster support for him among the Palestinian public, which has long since lost faith in him and in some possible peace process with the Israelis. It was intended to strengthen him after spending years trying to weaken him.

Behind the name of just about every prisoner who is being released is the name of an Israeli victim, who was murdered by that prisoner.

Take, for example, Isaac Rotenberg. He was a Holocaust survivor who was hacked to death with an axe by Abu Musa Salem Ali Atiya. Pay particular attention to the date on which Rotenberg was murdered. It was March 30, 1994, about half a year after the signing of the Oslo Accords and approximately two months before Palestine Liberation Organization leader (PLO) Yasser Arafat arrived in the Gaza Strip to establish the Palestinian Authority. Those days, most of the Palestinian public was overcome with a sense of euphoria. These were difficult days for Hamas, which watched as its brothers in arms in the PLO were lauded by the people as they established the government infrastructure that could one day lead to statehood. Meanwhile, Hamas was kept out of the game.