As poorly as the Israel-Palestinian peace talks have gone this time around, it’s really a wonder that one side or the other hasn’t ditched them entirely. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is surprised too, because he recommended quitting the talks awhile ago.
According to Erekat, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas didn’t want to quit the talks yet because there is a round of prisoner releases scheduled for the end of the month, and he doesn’t want to keep those from happening.
Whether that means the talks will die quickly after the releases or not is unclear, but there seems to be a strong interest on both sides to see the other withdraw first, so they can insist the failure totally wasn’t their fault.
Israeli Deputy FM Zeev Elkin, who says he is opposed to peace talks on general principle, urged Israel to respond by demand the Palestinians give in to all their demands before the prisoner release happens.
Just testing to see why my comments are not accepted anymore. hmm
[moderator’s note: Your comments are accepted. But when they get caught in our spam filters, as will occasionally happen (especially to people who decline to register and use an IntenseDebate or WordPress.com account that can be “whitelisted”), it may be some time before a moderator gets to them to approve them. Which, of course, you know, having been told all this before. Stop pretending you’re being suppressed. You know better and so does everyone else – TLK]
There are times when Palestinian Abbas seems to be the best negotiator Israel has…