The confirmation of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hezbollah is the biggest political achievement by the group since Israel’s precipitous withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. The deal, brokered by Germany, may be implemented as early as tomorrow. Israel will release 35 prisoners of various Arab nationalities, including two senior Hezbollah officials, Mustafa Dirani and Abdel-Karim Obeid, and 400 Palestinian prisoners, possibly even Marwan Al-Barghouti, the charismatic West Bank leader who led the early stages of the current intifada.

Israel will also release the German citizen, Stephan Smyrek, who worked with Hezbollah and provide information on 24 Lebanese MIAs to Lebanon. It will also return to Lebanon the bodies of 59 Lebanese killed in action and Israeli Defense Forces maps of mines along the Israel-Lebanese border. In exchange, Hezbollah will release Elhanan Tennenbaum, an Israeli businessman and army reserve colonel, as well as the bodies of three Israel Defense Forces soldiers presumed to have been killed in action.

An agreement was almost reached in November but fell through because of disagreements over Lebanese prisoner Samir Quntar. Hezbollah wanted Quntar to be part of the deal but Israel refused to release prisoners with “blood on their hands” as opposed to those who had killed Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon. Quntar was arrested in 1979 for killing five members of an Israeli family near the coastal town of Nahariyeh in Israel. An Israeli court sentenced him to 542 years in prison — 99 years for every victim and 47 years for attacking an Israeli officer during interrogation. Quntar’s case may be reviewed if the exchange agreement brings substantial information about Israeli pilot Ron Arad whose plane went down over Lebanon in 1986.

But not everybody is happy with the impending swap. Some in Israel disagree with Sharon’s argument that the exchange could raise Israeli morale while at the same time renewing confidence in his leadership. Sharon in fact needs to create a diversion. Domestic critics of a military strategy that has not quelled Palestinian resistance are assailing him, there is a worsening economic crisis and his ratings are low. And now pressure is mounting within Sharon’s ruling coalition for the Israeli leader to quit if prosecutors indict him in a bribery scandal. Sharon could thus exploit the prisoner issue to recast himself as the ultimate defender of Jewish life, a posture that plays well with Israeli public opinion.

As before, the deal could again collapse at the last minute and as before, Sharon will be able to cast any failure as being due to Hezbollah’s intransigence over Israel’s generosity. This too will go down well with Israelis though as before, it will cut no ice with Arab opinion which will see the game for what it is.