Once again Netanyahu is caving to extortion. He should not agree to release 1000 murderers from jail even though they have been there since before Oslo. After all, I don’t see the US releasing Pollard any time soon. He has been in jail for much longer and he didn’t kill anyone.
Effectively then, Abbas removes the precondition about borders which doesn’t mean that he won’t insist on the ’67 lines throughout negotiations. Netanyahu on the other hand releases many prisoners which is a tangeble concession and applies a freeze xcept for the settlement blocs which will last as long as the negotiations last.
Naft ali Bennett put it this way:
“I’ve participated in dozens of negotiations in my life; never have I paid a price for the simple right to negotiate. If you want to sit and talk, by all means. I’m not about to pay for this sacred right to sit and talk to [Abbas].”
Ted Belman
Diplomats: Netanyahu ready to release Palestinian prisoners, Sources involved in talks with John Kerry say move would coincide with Abbas agreeing to back down from preconditions and return to the negotiating table
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is prepared to release a limited number of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dropping the return to the ’67 lines as a precondition to resuming peace talks, diplomatic sources said Monday.
The sources, who took part in talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Netanyahu and Abbas, told Hebrew daily Maariv that Kerry was interested in granting both leaders political gains that would allow them to save face and return to the negotiating table.
The reciprocating steps would presumably allow both sides to present their constituents with tangible achievements. For Netanyahu, the release of prisoners, combined with the possible announcement of a construction freeze in West Bank settlements outside of the major blocs, could be presented as gestures to the Palestinians that don’t entail capitulating to their preconditions. For Abbas, the prisoner release — a highly sensitive issue on the Palestinian street — could be seen as a personal achievement of great magnitude that might justify resumption of negotiations.
The Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem declined to comment on the report.
The report came three days before Kerry is supposed to visit the region in continuing efforts to jump-start peace talks. According to the State Department, Kerry will visit Amman and Jerusalem to meet Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian officials during the three-day visit.
The diplomats described the developments as “meaningful progress” towards resuming peace talks, stressing that Kerry had postponed his visit to the region, which was originally scheduled to take place last week, precisely because he did not want to leave empty-handed, with both sides entrenched in their positions.
“These are critical days in the American effort to resume talks,” the sources said, stressing that the move would prevent a renewed Palestinian push for statehood at the UN and their following up on threats to go after Israel in the International Criminal Court.
According to the report, Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, the Justice Ministry, and the Prison Authority will start compiling a list of possible prisoners to release, within days. The release of prisoners, all of whom were arrested before the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords and deemed not to pose a security risk, is scheduled to coincide with the beginning of Islam’s Holy month of Ramadhan, which starts July 7.
Netanyahu last year offered to free 50 Palestinian security prisoners held since before the Oslo Accords of the early 1990s, in a bid to get Abbas to come back to the peace table, The Times of Israel reported two weeks ago. Abbas rejected the offer.
On Monday evening, Palestinian sources told Yedioth Ahronoth that Kerry plans to set up a joint meeting with Netanyahu and Abbas, though they estimated that the chances of such a meeting taking place in the near future are slim.
Also on Monday, Israel’s Channel 2 reported that Abbas had expressed interest in restarting peace negotiations with Israel, a report that was later denied by the PA.
Citing talk “in the corridors of Ramallah,” Channel 2?s Arab affairs correspondent Ehud Yaari reported that officials were hinting that Abbas was keen to talk, despite his preconditions for coming to the table not being met.
Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have been stalled since 2010, with Abbas demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners and a freeze on settlement construction as preconditions for restarting talks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to not agree to any preconditions before returning to the table, while expressing readiness to discuss all issues when talks resume.
According to the TV report, sources in Jerusalem said that, from Israel’s point of view, the important development will not be seeing Abbas return to the negotiation table, but rather seeing him stay there.
Senior coalition partner Yesh Atid praised the news, saying “direct and courageous talks were the only way to solve the conflict,” according to a statement released Monday night.
In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Netanyahu made clear his willingness to negotiate immediately, and declared that “if [US] Secretary [of State John] Kerry, whose efforts we support, were to pitch a tent halfway between [Jerusalem] and Ramallah — that’s 15 minutes away, driving time — I’m in it, I’m in the tent.”
Aaron Kalman, Stuart Winer and Elhanan Miller contributed to this report
Most if not every single prime minister gives in to the West “powers” (mainly the US). This suggests major kind of political blackmail against IL.
The US stated publically (Obama) but not privately (Kerry) the end of preconditions.Roberto Edery Said:
The right to survive. IL is still dependent on the US for her defense.
IL Needs to diversify to reduce or eliminate the dependence.
Will Lapid and Bennett take over when needed.
The US will try to impose conditions unacceptable to IL.
As we know, Kerry is already trying to chip at the Jordan valley.
This would be the equivalent of a “coup de grace” and torpedo the Jewish state.
This is absolutely grotesque. They simply replace “preconditions” for “gestures”, and everybody is happy… they even have the cynism to present it as an “achievement”! But just answer me this: Abbas gets a very tangible result, his beloved martyrs, even BEFORE he sits at the table, with the freeze as the cherry on the cake. In short, his preconditions. WHAT DOES ISRAEL GET? Only the humiliation! Absolutely no commitment from Abbas on anything! If Bibi agrees to that, and it doesn’t create an uproar of rage among the israelis, we will have reached the lowest point in our history. It will be a stain that will never disappear… that is, if our country survives at all. Those “gestures” are simple the beginning of the descent to hell. G_d saves us all.
Bibi is worse than a national embarrassment, he is for Israel just another Ariel Sharon, 5th columnist. The internal Likud elections come in just a few days, time to rid Likud and Israel of this liar as described by the French PM. He doesn’t even follow the constitution and platform of his own Likud party and worse, works to thwart free speech.
Shy Guy Said:
Hebrew speaking Portugal. 🙁
Shy Guy Said:
Since when is democracy a Jewish Value?
The original document did not mention democracy and for a good reason.
Down with democracy. (The lefts Golden Calf)
I wasn’t hit by a bolt of lightning after I said that. 🙂
@ Shy Guy:
Jew killed by Arab guard because the Arab got angry during a verbal exchange. The guard that shot a Jew at Temple Mount alleging the Jew had shouted Allahu Akbar was lying. The killing followed “an argument”. The guard is an Arab. A Druze, to be precise. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169306
So, Shy Guy, it’s not surprising that MKs find it so hard to affirm Israel is a Jewish state because it is rapidly morphing into a Dhimmi state, where Jewish lives are expendable, and ostensibly worth less than Arab lives – just ask IDF soldiers who are forced by their commanders to flee while Arabs throw firebombs and rocks at them.
Canadian Otter Said:
Israelis are lost in their own homeland.
@ Shy Guy:
Thanks for the article. “Coalition talks on bill defining Israel as Jewish State break down”
Aside from this important central issue, those involved in the discussion seem to be getting lost in semantics. What is natural for other countries – the affirmation of pride in identity – seems to cause all kinds of distress and anguish in Israel, and fear of offending someone, and the list is long: Arabs, seculars of all kinds, Christians, foreign powers, the UN, the terminally self-hating Jews, and more.
If they can’t define the state, can we expect them to define betrayal – or have any red lines in that regard?
Canadian Otter Said:
In Israel, on the fast of the 17th of Tammuz…
MKs, serial betrayers of Israel’s interests – although two of them rose to defend Jewish rights in this case.
Why is the issue of giving Jewish land to Arabs even discussed? ~~~ This can’t be excused as “sacrifices for peace”. This is just more routine government favoring Arabs over Jewish rights. On the A7 report notice how the Arab MK makes a subtle threat of violence by saying Arab overcrowding is a “powder keg”. I just mentioned on another thread how Arabs and Isaeli authorities use threats of Arab violence to justify policies of appeasement. Also notice his use of the word “racist”, knowing how that accusation makes Jews cringe and concede whatever it is asked of them.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3783/palestinians-no-jews-allowed
Terrorism is a crime under international law. No Israeli Basic Law nor any Israeli authority can legislate otherwise than punishing criminals in proportion to their crimes.
The crimes committed by these prisoners meet all the criteria of the Nuremberg Principles which clearly identify crimes against humanity, as stipulated below:
Principle VI
[……]
c. Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connexion with any crime against peace or any war crime.
Since the illegal Oslo Accords – signed with a terrorist entity guilty of the same crimes – Israeli governments have and continue to violate international law by releasing terrorists.
The death penalty exists in the Israeli military law and terrorists should have been tried and convicted under this legislation.
By releasing these criminals, the Israeli government has once again been complicit with criminals and, therefore, be indirectly complicit of crimes against humanity, by putting the lives of their citizens and their soldiers in danger.
In other words, instead of condemning to death those criminals against humanity, Israel sentenced to death its own citizens.
Please explain, what does US pressure have to do with the many other instances when the Knesset or govt-appointed officials implement policies that go obviously against the interests of the country and the Jews? It is clear that the US govt exerts pressure. But direct US meddling can’t be blamed in every case. ~~~ For example, what about the refusal to take measures to stop the daily terror inflicted on motorists? And how do you explain the Knesset being even more anti-Jewish than the courts in yesterday’s vote handing over the Negev to Bedouin squatters? What are the forces behind legislators and officials “caving in,” even when there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever? Perhaps it is time to consider that the unthinkable is indeed going on.
By practicing a policy of imprisoning Arabs for whatever reason, instead of simply expelling them across the nearest Arab border — including Gaza — the Israeli government has instead made itself a hostage both to the Abbas gang in Ramallah — pretending as usual to be the government of a viable state — and inviting yet more meddling from the US government into what should be solely the business of the government of the Jewish state.
Try to remember next time the simple logic of expulsion in contrast to imprisonment.
Imprisonment means that Israeli taxpayers must cover the costs of feeding, housing, clothing and providing medical treatment to a population that is at perpetual war against the Jewish nation and state.
Expulsion not only means you never again will have any locally-based trouble with that particular Arab, but that you in better position to take his property and settle it with Jews.
And the more I think about it, the more I might be inclined to expel all such troublemakers to Gaza. Why? Because Gaza itself is possibly the largest mostly open air prison on the face of this planet. It could serve Israel exactly the same way Australia served the British Empire early in the 19th century, when the Brits shipped their own criminals, indigents, and whomever else they no longer wanted on Blighty.
Start using our fabled smarts, Jewish nation, and always strive to accomplish two purposes with one action; especially so in this permanent war.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
No amount of Israeli concessions will induce the Arabs to make peace with Israel! Peace is not something Israel should have to beg from them. If the Arabs want peace, they can return to the table themselves. Jewish capitulation to Arab demands will not bring peace closer.