Israel to Blame for West Bank Prison Overcrowding

Pretty amusing April Fool's gag from Reuters, although they give it away with the headline alone.

Prison shortage mars Palestinian security campaign .

I'm doubled over in laughter at the comical notion of a Palestinian security campaign. These Reuters folks are quite the comedians. Next thing you know we'll see a story saying the Palestinians want peace with Israel.

Oh wait, this isn't a joke?

When a Palestinian law and order campaign started in the occupied West Bank late last year, Western advisers quickly realised they had a problem: Palestinian forces had no place to put all of their prisoners.

Many of the Palestinian Authority's prisons, some dating back to the Ottoman era, were destroyed by Israel after a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 and peace talks broke down.

The few prisons left and the dysfunctional judicial system, plagued by backlogs long before statehood talks were relaunched in November alongside the security crackdown, can't cope with the influx, Palestinian officials and their Western advisers say.

Of course it's not a joke. They blame the Israelis for allegedly destroying the prisons.

So, for all the billions the West pour into this hellhole, they're unable to accomodate more 509 inmates total?

At Ramallah's civil penitentiary, a facility meant to hold no more than 180 inmates, there are 240 prisoners, according to the Palestinian attorney general.

In the town of Jericho, near the Dead Sea, 51 detainees cook, pray and wait in sweltering concrete cells so small they barely have room to stand up and stretch. The facility is meant to hold 40 people.

"You sit here and you rot," said Yousef Judeh, a 34-year-old father of five accused of collaborating with Israel. His case still pending, he has been languishing here for two years.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's law and order campaign has improved security in some areas and showcased his government's pledge to comply with a stalled "road map" peace plan, a condition set by Israel for Palestinian statehood.

But Western officials say the campaign has also revealed the weakness of the underlying penal system. "There may be order, but there is no law," one of the advisers said.

With the capacity of the civil prisons totalling just 509 inmates for all of the West Bank, home to 2.5 million Palestinians, Attorney General Ahmed al-Moghani said he has little choice but to release some of those arrested for lesser offences, from theft to prostitution.

"Sometimes we take decisions that are irresponsible. But this is reality," Moghani said.

Of course, it always comes back to Israel. Like if Israel were never there these people would be prospering.

Israel, which has yet to meet its own obligations under the road map, has long asserted that a so-called "revolving door" policy, whereby some militants are rounded up but subsequently freed, stands as a barrier to any statehood agreement.

Fayyad and many Western officials blame Israel for undermining the security campaign by refusing to halt raids in Nablus and other cities after Palestinian forces deployed.

Read the rest of this pathetic sob story.

One thing's for sure, when it comes to Reuters and their Middle East reportage, it seems everry day is April Fool's Day.