Abbas’ hand-drawn map (Walla)

A sketched map of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert’s land-for-peace offer to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2008 — hurriedly drawn up by Abbas after a meeting with Olmert that December, and made public for the first time on Thursday — suggests that Israel was prepared to withdraw to borders very similar to the pre-1967 lines and swap areas of northern and southern Israel in return for maintaining the larger settlement blocs.

The map, published by Walla news, was based on an offer Olmert made to Abbas on December 16, 2008, during a meeting in Jerusalem. Olmert presented Abbas with a large formal map showing his territorial compromise proposal for the contours of a Palestinian state as part of a permanent peace accord, and demanded that Abbas initial the proposal before taking it back to Ramallah for consideration by the Palestinians. Abbas refused to do so, but on his return to his headquarters, he gathered his officials and asked them to remain silent while he hastily recreated the offer on a sheet of official Palestinian Authority notepaper.

The sketch, which includes no place names, indicates that Olmert was apparently willing to more or less return to the pre-1967 lines, while maintaining the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem, the settlement city of Ma’ale Adumin to the east, and a slice of territory that apparently would encompass the large settlement of Ariel in Samaria. In exchange for expanding Israeli sovereignty to those areas, Israel would have given up some of its own land to the new Palestinian state.

According to Walla, Olmert envisaged relinquishing Israeli territory on a one-for-one basis to the Palestinians in areas including near Afula; near Tirat Zvi south of Beit She’an; north of Jerusalem; in the Judean Desert, and in the Lachish area. He also endorsed a tunnel route to link Gaza and the West Bank.

Olmert, as he has subsequently confirmed, was also prepared to divide Jerusalem into Israeli- and Palestinian-controlled neighborhoods, and to relinquish Israeli sovereignty at the Temple Mount and the entire Old City. He proposed that the “Holy Basin” be overseen instead by a five-member, non-sovereign international trusteeship, comprising Israel, the PA, Jordan, the US and Saudi Arabia.

A sketch of the land for peace offer made by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in December 2008. The map was hand-drawn by Abbas.

According to Walla, Olmert has confirmed that Abbas’s sketched map is similar to that depicted in his proposal, and reconfirmed his readiness to have relinquished sovereignty at the Temple Mount.

I dunno. Methink Abbas wasn’t drawing a map, but rather sketching Olmert during some monotonous parts of the talks.

But there is another prisoner in an Israeli jail, who is someone that I do know about.

Wa’al al-Araji sat in the defendant’s box in Ofer Military Prison on June 3, 2012.

His legal proceedings for the rock-throwing murder of Asher Palmer and his infant son Yonatan in September 2011, has schlepped out from months to years.

Michael Palmer, Asher’s father, and a small, but very loyal group of supporters have attended every trial session possible. Often they would travel to Ofer to find that instead of a scheduled session there was but another excuse for a delay.

Michael Palmer, in the red shirt, and his lawyer, Adv. Adrian Agassi,  met with US representatives outside the court room before the June 3 session.

The room that day was mostly empty of Arab spectators.  A co-defendant was meant to testify against Wa’al.

He was afraid of the al-Araji gang of Halhoul, not of the Israelis, and wanted no witnesses. In the end he was so scared that he chickened out and did not testify that day after all.

There were more defendants in the rock-throwing moving car, their fate is still unclear.

Palmer supporters could demonstrate their support only by holding this photo of Asher and Yonatan in some of the hearings.  Just to be allowed to hold a picture had to be approved by the court and was not always permitted. So slow, so careful, was Israeli military justice to protect the rights of the defendants.

Wa’al has finally been convicted and sentenced.  Throwing a large rock from a moving car was a new technique to kill innocent victims and it took this long to for the court to call it murder.

Now we can wait for a new protest against this verdict.  As I said before, what do the facts or the truth have to do with anything?

Traffic is again clogging the Jerusalem streets.

The official signs “Unbreakable alliance” – President Obama in Israel 2013 will be around for awhile.

It has been announced that Israel will transfer tax revenue to PA, so it looks like the effects of this presidential visit will be around for awhile too.

“Who is this guy and why does he never smile?”

“Who’s your daddy?”

“Shimon, you really have a mold problem”

“Shimon, she already told me her name was Titi. No need to point out with your hand what that sounds like.”

Lo and behold, all of a sudden Jaradat wasn’t tortured to death by Israeli internal security (Shin Bet), but he was killed by the next worse thing in their minds: “collaborators.”

PA: Collaborators liquidated prisoner Jaradat.

The Palestinian Authority claimed Saturday that Arafat Jaradat, the 30-year-old Palestinian who died in Megiddo Prison last week, was killed by Palestinian “collaborators.”

The PA Prisoners Affairs Ministry said that Jaradat died two days after being transferred to a cell where “collaborators” were being held.

According to the ministry, Jaradat was moved to the cell so that the “collaborators” would be able to extract a confession from him after his Israeli interrogators failed to do so.

“Because he did not confess to throwing stones, Jaradat was moved to the collaborators’ cell in prison, where he was physically liquidated two days later,” the ministry said.

In a statement, the ministry claimed that Israel often uses “collaborators” in its prisons to elicit confessions out of security prisoners.

…this is the first time the PA has claimed that Palestinians killed Jaradat.

And not that any of Israel’s detractors care, but the autopsy came back negative for poison and physical violence.

There was no evidence of poisoning or physical violence against Arafat Jaradat, the Palestinian prisoner who was found dead in his Megiddo Prison cell last week, according to an intermediate autopsy report released by the Health Ministry on Thursday.

According to the report, the fractures in the ribs and hemorrhages on the skin were typical of the condition of people who undergo intensive resuscitation in an attempt to save their lives. The resuscitation was performed for 50 minutes by prison physicians and Magen David Adom paramedics.

And one last thing. You know how Jaradat was hailed as a father of two, innocent gas station clerk? Well, turns out he’s a member of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades:

Al Aqsa brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah national liberation movement, mourns with all pride its hero, the martyr of freedom, the prisoner Arafat Jaradat,” the statement said, in reference to Jaradat’s membership of the group.

I guess we can add “gas station clerk” to “baker” and “soccer player“, in the list of inconspicuous jobs, a way for Joey useful idiots terrorist shills to whitewash Palestinian terrorism.

President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that the issue of prisoners and releasing them is the central issue of the Palestinian people and its leadership. He insisted there would not be peace with Israel side without releasing prisoners. Abbas’ remarks came at a reception with prisoners advocates at his residence in Ramallah, where he affirmed that the leadership was doing its best to save the lives of hunger strikers and end their suffering. He said talks were ongoing with all factions to resolve the issue. Abbas called on the Israeli side to implement agreements related to prisoners, especially those who were detained before Oslo, and agreements with the former prime minister of Israel. Abbas also condemned the death of Arafat Jaradat in Israeli custody and called for an international investigation.

Haaretz Hebrew adds that PA representatives demanded the Obama administration includes the Palestinian prisoners in any new format for the resumptions of negotiations, and that Israel has to release prisoners as a gesture of goodwill leading to Obama’s visit to the region. These demands were presented to John Kerry, as well as other high ranking officials.

This adds to their precondition of an Israeli building freeze.

Meanwhile, Israel has no preconditions whatsoever from the PA.

I recommend that Israel releases only Hamas terrorists, and to Ramallah. It’s about time Abbas learned to fly.

A Palestinian court has sentenced a man from the Nablus area to a year in prison for insulting President Mahmoud Abbas on Facebook, officials said Thursday.

The Nablus magistrates court sentenced Anas Saad Awwad, 26, of Awarta village, in absentia to a year in prison after convicting him on charges of criticizing the government, an official said.

Khalil Assaf, the director of the public freedoms committee within an unimplemented unity deal, called the sentence itself an insult to the president, not the supposed crime of criticizing him.

Assaf called on the court to reverse the ruling.

The defendant had been detained previously on similar charges, but was released after paying a fine, according to his father.

“My son only commented on Facebook. You know how young people comment,” he said. “He didn’t mean to insult the president. I ask the president to intervene personally to cancel the court’s decision.”

Awwad’s lawyer, Rima al-Sayyed, said her client has been accused of photo-shopping of Abbas wearing a Real Madrid shirt with the caption: “A new striker.”

She declined to comment on the sentence, saying it was not final.

Last year Palestinian security forces jailed at least three people accused in separate incidents of criticizing the government on social networking websites.

Who’d have thought Mahmoud Abbas doesn’t have a sense of humor?

When it was time to flatter the Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi, Abbas called him Muhammad Hosni.

Morsi was not impressed:

Then again, Egyptians are calling Morsi the new Hosni, so it’s understandable

We have already shown that Israel’s supposed peace partner, which is headed by the West’s darling Mahmoud Abbas, has all of Israel’s outline on their logo, so this celebration in Gaza today just confirms what we already know.

• Child abuse – check.
• Military fatigues on toddler – check.
• Arab nationalism – check.
• Ironic use of peace sign – check.
• Israel’s destruction – check.
• Peace partner? – umm……

Nope. (h/t Jonathan Schanzer)

Note the “Abbas 194″ on the mock rocket, a reference to the recent UNGA vote.

President Mahmoud Abbas wrote to US President Barack Obama on Saturday to offer his condolences after a shooting in an American elementary school killed 26 people.

Twenty children were killed by a heavily armed gunman who opened fire at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, on Friday. He killed at least 26 people there before turning his gun on himself.

Authorities found 18 children and seven adults, including the gunman, dead at the school, and two children were pronounced dead later after being taken to a hospital.

“Most of those who died were just young children with their whole lives ahead of them. And every parent in America has a heart heavy with hurt,” Obama said.

Abbas expressed his condolences for the American people and the families of the victims, Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa said.

This coming from someone, whose last offered condolences were to those who tried to perpetrate an even bigger massacre than the one in Connecticut.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas spoke by telephone on Thursday with Gaza’s Hamas premier Ismail Haniyeh and congratulated him on his “victory,” a Hamas statement said.

In a telephone conversation, president Abu Mazen (Abbas) congratulated prime minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on his victory and offered condolences for the martyrs,” a statement from the Heiyah’s office said

Deja vu anyone?

Update: Did I mention that this is the same Mahmoud Abbas who planned the infamous Maalot massacre, in which 22 children were murdered?