Releasing prisoners to "build confidence"

You arrest someone. You charge them with a crime, you put them in jail. Now here's a basic question. Do you believe your justice system is in fact "just"? If so, then clearly you feel that the punishment you have given these people is appropriate for their crimes. The time in jail will either serve as a deterrent (we'll ignore all the studies about how well that works) or rehabilitation.

VOA News - Palestinian Prisoner Release Given Green Light

Israel's prime minister has received cabinet approval to release 441 Palestinian prisoners ahead of next week's Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. Mr. Olmert told his cabinet he plans to remove unauthorized settlements in the West Bank. As VOA's Jim Teeple reports from Jerusalem, Palestinians have criticized the prisoner release as inadequate. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Momentum is gathering ahead of next week's Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. Ehud Olmert says his prisoner release is a key confidence building measure, ahead of the conference.

All of which is to say that if you can go to your jails, sort through the people there, and come up with 441 of them whom you believe it's suddenly okay to release in order to "build confidence", then it's clear that it isn't the people in jail you are punishing. You're trying to punish the people of Palestine. Because the only way I can interpret that phrase is that it's meant to indicate that "if you play nice with us, we'll let more go, and we won't arrest any new folks". All of which makes a mockery of the justice system.