After allowing Adnan - never charged with any crime - to come to the very brink of death, shackled to a hospital bed, Israel would certainly have come off better in this farce if it could have told the world: "this guy is seriously dangerous, and we have the evidence to prove it.  We are charging him with specific crimes and he will get his day in court - and the world will see that Israel affords due process even to Palestinians accused of heinous crimes."  The fact that Israel opted instead not to charge Adnan lends credence to the view that it did not have evidence to do so.

Israel no doubt hopes that it has adopted a face-saving compromise - and what is for Adnan a life-saving compromise - essentially boiling down to: "we won't charge you, but we won't just release you, because that would look like an admission of culpability.  Instead we'll promise not to detain you past the original 'term' we arbitrarily handed down against you (without due process).  And since we have the authority to arbitrarily detain you indefinitely, that's a huge concession that you should thank us for, and that the world should applaud us for."

The fact that Adnan will (hopefully) now not starve to death in Israeli administrative detention is a good thing, both from a moral perspective and from the perspective of what is best for Israel.  At the same time, this "compromise" skirts the broader issue of Israel's longstanding policy of arbitrarily detaining Palestinians.  The Israel human rights organization B'tselem has a useful page detailing the statistics for Palestinians in Israeli administrative detention. 

It is sobering to review the numbers.  Adnan is the first Palestinian to challenge Israel's administrative detention policy in a manner - putting his own life truly on the line - that succeeded in drawing attention to a policy that shames Israel and is by any measure a travesty of justice.  It would be naïve to imagine that he will be the last.  Israel would do well to end its administrative detention policy before it finds itself with more Khader Adnans on its hands.