David Horovitz
Jerusalem
Ahead of his talks at the White House with President Bush tomorrow, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, pushed a decision through his cabinet yesterday to release more than 200 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad from Israeli jails.
This brings to 540 the number of prisoner releases Mr Sharon will be able to announce in Washington - out of some 7,500 Palestinian prisoners - as a gesture designed to persuade Mr Bush of his commitment to partnering the Palestinian Prime Minister Mr Mahmoud Abbas, to progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"[Mahmoud Abbas\] is our partner in the \ road map," said a spokesman for Mr Sharon. "We wanted to show our good will and so we agreed to the release. But we still stand firm in our refusal to release those who actively took part in terror attacks or kidnappings or murder."
A sceptical Israeli cabinet reluctantly approved the releases by 14 votes to nine, with several dissenting ministers, including some from Mr Sharon's own Likud party, arguing that the Islamic extremist groups had declared only a temporary ceasefire to suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis over the past month and should not be rewarded with the freeing of their detainees.
Mr Sharon's position, however, was that no one with "blood on their hands" - that is, directly involved in an attack - would be going free and that it was in Israel's interest to take steps that would bolster support among Palestinians for Mr Abbas.
A Gaza-based Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, derided the releases as "not a serious step" and said if Israel did not free all the prisoners, it would be violating the conditions under which Hamas called the ceasefire and would be "responsible for the consequences".
However, Mr Bush, who gave a warm reception to Mr Abbas at their first White House meeting last Friday, made clear that he did not expect Israel to set free all the prisoners it holds, since releasing murderers, he said, would entirely undermine peace efforts.
Conscious of Mr Bush's call to ease living conditions for ordinary Palestinians, Mr Sharon's government removed two major West Bank road blocks yesterday, easing travel between Ramallah and surrounding towns and villages.
Mr Sharon is anxious to bring news to Mr Bush of such constructive Israeli action, because the two are plainly at odds over two other issues: the West Bank security barrier - which Mr Bush called a "wall" on Friday - and the entire issue of settlements.
Israeli officials say they believe Mr Bush mis-spoke when he referred on Friday to the "need to end" settlements and that he was demanding only a halt to new building there, as required by the road map. However, there was no mistaking his opposition to the "wall snaking through the West Bank" which Mr Abbas, using maps, had shown was being built deep inside the West Bank in places.
If there is to be a wall, the administration wants it as close to the pre-1967 Israel-West Bank border as possible. Mr Sharon may agree to suspend building of some sections and will argue that the barrier is designed solely to complicate access to Israel for would-be bombers.
For all the president's warm praise for Mr Abbas on Friday, Mr Bush referred several times to the need to "root out" terrorism as the key to substantive progress.