I''ll admit: I''m mixed up.
In this paper this morning I read:
The PA on Saturday criticized Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s statements that the Palestinians need to give something in return for the release of the final batch of Palestinian prisoners.Nabil Abu Rudaineh, Abbas’s spokesman, said the Palestinians reject Livni’s statements. “As head of the Israeli negotiating team, Livni knows that the Israeli- Palestinian-American agreement envisaged the release of the prisoners in return for not going to international organizations for nine months,” Abu Rudaineh said.
So there was an "envisaged" precondition.
But the theme overarching the negotiations has been from the start
And in October 2009, one story had it as
...Addressing the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem''s Inbal Hotel, [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu said he still stands by his 2009 Bar-Ilan speech where he backed the concept of two states for two peoples."I believe that a framework to peace (with the Palestinians) is what I outlined in my speech in Bar-Ilan University – two states for two peoples: A demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state." He nevertheless stressed that there should be no pre-conditions to negotiations and called for a resumption of talks. "To reach this solution means to negotiate in good faith. That means you don''t place preconditions. For the past four years the Palestinians regrettably place preconditions, time after time. My hope is that they leave them aside and get to the negotiating table," he said.
Is a new precondition now to be Indyk''s removal? This paper reports:
A senior Fatah official in the West Bank on Saturday launched a scathing attack on US envoy Martin Indyk, who has been making efforts to salvage the peace talks with Israel. Indyk is a “Zionist defending Israeli interests,” Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fatah Central Committee
Indyk a Zionist? That''s laughable.
What is not a joke is that Israel is still being blamed in too many circles despite that Israel has thrice released prisoners with the envisaged understanding that construction in Judea and Samaria continues.
Abbas, from the beginning, refuses to recognize Israel as the "Jewish state" and through various dedications and ceremonies promotes the glorification of terror as a form of "Palestinian worship". He permits anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist incitement on Pal. Authority media. Saeb Erekat, chief neogtiator, lies about his origins and claims to be a Natufian. Abbas also gets the Arab League to issue and back his three noes:
the Palestinians will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state, will not agree to any deal that does not make east Jerusalem the future Palestinian capital and will not give up the right of return.
__________
Livni insisted on Saturday that the release was delayed only because of the PA demand that the prisoners to be freed include Arab Israelis convicted of terrorism. That, she told Channel 2, would necessitate "a new framework"."I clarified to the Americans and the Palestinians we wouldn''t release Israeli prisoners unless it were under a different context," she said."
___________
My one thought to release me and hopefully Israel from this mixup: the negotiations, if there are to be, cannot and should not take up again from this point but must go back. The Arafat/Abba ploy of obtaining maximum surrender by Israel and then breaking off, confident that the next round, whenever, will pick up again from the point of the last left-off must be halted. We go back, to almost the beginning, and take back our "gestures" and our "confidence building measures.
No more.
^