It never does anything. Whenever Israel releases prisoners as a “goodwill gesture,” well, nothing good comes of it. Unless you count Hamas getting even more pissy with Fatah, which is a good thing, because when they’re fighting each other, they have less energy to aim at Israel.

The two men are Muhammad Abu Ali, who murdered a reserve soldier in Hebron and a Palestinian detainee suspected of collaborating with Israel, and Said el-Atba, who planted three explosive devices in Petah Tikva and Tel Aviv markets and in Israeli buses. Israeli citizen Tzila Galili was killed in one of these attacks.

Gee, great idea. Go ahead and release a murderer and a terrorist. Because there’s no way terrorists would, say, go back to being terrorists. No, gee, why would they do that? That’s like saying the Palestinian police is infested with terrorists.

Oh. Wait.