Surreal: Abu Bluff offers to extend talks to end of 2014 in exchange for 1,000 terrorists of his choosing
On Saturday, The Times of Israel learned from a Palestinian source that Jerusalem, backed by Washington, offered to release 400 more prisoners of Israel’s choosing, in addition to a fourth and final group of longtime terrorism convicts who were set to go free this weekend – on the condition that the Palestinian Authority agrees to prolong the ongoing negotiations beyond the April 29 deadline.
However, on Sunday, the Palestinian leadership rejected the offer and presented a counteroffer of its own to American mediators – that Israel release 1,000 more prisoners, of the Palestinian Authority’s choosing. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also demanded that Israel freeze settlement construction and transfer some Area C regions to the Palestinian Authority’s control.
In exchange, peace talks would be extended until the end of 2014.
Although the Palestinian leadership rejected Israel’s offer, which was an attempt to at least partially fill Abbas’s prerequisites for the extension of talks, the Palestinian Authority was holding intensive talks Sunday to discuss the matter further.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, who has resigned several times since peace talks started up again in July under US mediation, said Sunday that he was still holding secret talks with Jerusalem and Washington, far from the public eye.
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Saturday’s offer had stipulated that Israel would determine which additional 400 security prisoners would go free, Palestinian sources said. The demand was rejected by the Palestinian leadership, which insisted on determining which prisoners would be freed.
Israel is said to be holding close to 5,000 Palestinian security prisoners.Netanyahu has all the backbone of a pretzel soaked in warm water overnight, but I do not see his own party - let alone Jewish Home - going along with this.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, gestures, Middle East peace process, Palestinian terrorists, Saeb Erekat, unilateral concessions
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:04 PM
1 Comments:
This is absurd. The reporting on Netanyahu's alleged offer is making it sound like he took the initiative - "hey, you know what? I'll give you 400 terrorists if you agree to stay at the table" - without even waiting for a demand from Abbas. Is this what it's come to? From "no preconditions" to "you don't even need to ask for preconditions - we'll do it ourselves"? From "Never release terrorists" to "hey, we've got 400 terrorists, you want 'em"?
I doubt many Netanyahu voters believed this was what they were voting for.
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