Israel and the PA are set to begin to so-called indirect peace talks this week.
First step: agree on which topic with which to start!
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to open the indirect talks with the Palestinian Authority this week with a discussion of the security arrangements in the West Bank and of water resources. A senior official told Haaretz that Netanyahu had recently asked the defense establishment and the National Security Council to elaborate on the so-called eight-points brief, which lists Israel’s security demands in terms of a permanent status agreement, as framed by Ehud Olmert’s government.
The PLO executive committee is expected Monday to officially decide to renew negotiations.
Israeli diplomats believe the Palestinians will prefer to open the negotiations with discussion of the borders – an issue on which the Palestinians think they have an advantage over the Israelis, since the United States position on this matter is close to their own.
Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to the American demand to talk about the core issues of a permanent status agreement: borders, Jerusalem, security, water, settlements and refugees. However, each side has its own priorities which it will choose to focus on, and with which it will prefer to begin negotiations.
This should be fun.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)?
8:20PM: Separated at Birth? Apparently some London-based palestinians thought so.
It happened in London last December: Police officers raided a hotel in the British capital to arrest Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni for alleged war crimes during Operation Cast Lead. Luckily for her, she was not even in the city.
The details of the dramatic affair, which could have sparked a wide-scale diplomatic incident and possibly put Israel and Britain’s relations in danger, were brought to the attention of the Yedioth Ahronoth daily on Sunday.
Tami Shor, deputy director-general of Israel’s Water Authority, visited London in December 2009 after being invited to deliver a speech at a conference in the city. Her only resemblance to Livni appears to be her hair color and blue eyes.
But a Palestinian organization, convinced that this woman was the Israeli opposition leader, asked a local court to issue an arrest warrant against her for alleged war crimes committed during the Israeli operation in Gaza. The court was told that Livni was staying at the Hendon Hall Hotel in northern London.
A police force, armed with an arrest warrant, raided the hotel. The policemen searched for Livni, but couldn’t find her for a simple reason: She was indeed slated to visit London and attend the conference with the Water Authority deputy director-general, but had canceled the visit two weeks earlier.
However, her name was not deleted from the list of participants, and the organizers failed to announce that she won’t be attending in order to draw more people to the event.
The police, who thought Livni was hiding, searched for her throughout the hotel but couldn’t find her. Their next step was to demand that the hotel provide them with the security camera footage with the hopes of tracing her, but the opposition leader was nowhere to be found. A thorough investigation revealed that she had never arrived in Britain.
Tami Shor confirmed the details of the report.
Following the incident, the Foreign Ministry recommended that Livni avoid visiting Britain, and indeed she has refrained from doing so ever since.
A loophole in British law allows courts to issue arrest warrants against foreign leaders on suspicion of committing war crimes without the attorney general’s approval. This means that any Palestinian who learns about an upcoming visit of a “suspicious” Israeli official can ask for an arrest warrant – and it will be approved by the British court.
Meanwhile, here is Tami Shor.
I think you’ll agree she looks nothing like Tzipi Livni.
She does, however, look a bit like Anthony Michael Hall from The Breakfast Club.
4:42PM: Our Zionist operatives have had a busy day, first unleashing some Zionist Death Boars TM on our hapless neighbors, followed by some Zionist Death Cantaloupe.TM
4:30PM: The Jerusalem Post reports:
Israeli’s planning of construction in east Jerusalem will make continuation of proximity talks “difficult,” Chief Palestinian authority negotiator Saeb Erekat said Monday in an interview with Army Radio.
While Erekat would neither confirm nor deny that planning to build in the contested area would effectively stop the talks, he did underline that we “don’t have much time,” so “why should either side do something to complicate the process.”
It looks like Erekat let his guard down. After months of hearing from the palestinians (and others) that “settlements” will ruin peace and make it impossible to achieve, Erekat is now talking only of them complicating the process and making it difficult.
Which once again goes to show that when you concoct lies, it is sometimes hard to keep track.
12:20PM: As if their premature explodation wasn’t bad enough, palestinians have to also contend with misfiring.
Palestinian resistance fighters from an unknown faction misfired a projectile Sunday night, hitting a Khan Younis home and critically injuring one man who later died in hospital, sources in Gaza said.
Eighteen-year-old Ibrahim Sulaiman Malalha was taken to the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis then transferred to the European Hospital in Gaza City for treatment of injuries described as critical. He was announced dead on Monday morning, medical sources said.
Three others were taken to the Khan Younis hospital for treatment, two injured in the blast, and a third unknown victim, medics confirmed.
Sources said resistance fighters were training in a field outside the city, when a projectile was misfired.
9:26AM: Not content with their Avatard stunt, the palestinians and their supporters have come up with yet another propaganda ploy.
Here’s some other ideas for the trophy:
- A Kassam rocket
- Canned tuna
- A limited edition Farfur Mouse/Nahoul Bee/Assud Rabbit costume
- A box of viagra
- A goat (sorry, couldn’t resist)
6:02AM: Head Hamashole Ismail Haniyeh would like everyone to know his organization is like Robin Hood.
******************************************************************************************
Want to learn how to shoot with top Israeli anti-terror experts? Click here for more details.
******************************************************************************************
