Word: swapping
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...would take custody of the hostages from Berri and quickly set them free. Berri had agreed to hand over the Americans without any prior or even simultaneous release of the prisoners in Atlit. That would save face for the U.S. and Israel; both countries had insisted that any outright swap would constitute a payoff for terrorism. It was assumed that Israel would begin "unilaterally" setting the Atlit prisoners free as soon as the American hostages were at liberty. Such a release had in fact been planned and promised before the hijacking drama began...
...American hostages before the Lebanese prisoners were let go. The Administration could rightly argue, too, that Israel was going to free the Lebanese prisoners anyway and that the hijacking only delayed their release. Such subtleties would probably be lost on world opinion, which would see only a straightforward swap. Nonetheless, Israel took a step in that direction Sunday when it announced that it was releasing 31 of the detainees early this week while denying that the gesture had been precipitated by the hostage crisis in Beirut...
...mostly Palestinian prisoners, including 167 convicted terrorists. Though the trade was not a hostage deal, some critics charged that the inclusion of terrorists damaged the credibility of Israel's insistence that it would not bargain with enemies who attack civilians. Amid widespread feeling that another such swap would completely undermine the no-deal rule, some 50,000 Israelis staged an angry protest march in downtown Tel Aviv. Some carried signs urging Peres not to free the detainees under any circumstances. Jerusalem is also enmeshed in a controversy over the legality under which the Shi'ite detainees were brought to Israel...
...from government moderates like Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, the Foreign Minister who had the temerity to bargain with "the Great Satan." Trying to avoid a similar fate, Berri threatened to "wash his hands" of the whole affair and turn the hostages over to their original hijackers unless the U.S. arranged a "swap" with the Israelis...
...swap occurred while Washington was preoccupied with the Walker spy scandal. "We considered the awkward timing," said a senior U.S. diplomat. "But we felt this was sufficiently different so we could go forward. Besides, it had been so painstaking to put together...