Huge progress for the “peace process” with the PLO’s Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Committee backing indirect talks.
In other words, some representatives of the palestinians has agreed to not talk directly to Israel but through the US (while others – Hamas- are dead against any negotiations at all). And they are clearly not going to make less demands than they have in the past (if anything, they’ll make more demands buoyed by the US administrations pressuring of Israel).
Pardon me for not being optimistic.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)? ?
5:15PM: Photo of the day:
Explanation here.
4:30PM: PM Netanyahu has congratulated the PA. And himself.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday morning congratulated the Palestinian Authority on agreeing to enter proximity peace talks
At the start of the cabinet meeting, the prime minister stressed the government’s success in insisting that the Palestinians enter the negotiations without preconditions, and the need to quickly progress to direct talks.
“I’d like to stress two points in this context: the talks are taking place without preconditions, as we insisted all along” Netanyahu said. “The proximity talks must lead to direct talks as soon as possible.”
Well, perhaps there are no preconditions for these “proximity” talks, but there sure as hell are if we want to proceed to direct talks.
The Palestinian Authority on Sunday responded to U.S. and Israeli calls for eventual direct peace negotiations by reiterating that it would engage only in proximity talks until Israel halted all settlement construction.
10:35AM: The Israeli woman injured by a Qassam during Operation Cast Lead, who was largely ignored by Richard Goldstone, has ripped him a new one after discovering his penchant for sentencing black people to hang.
When Dr. Mirela Siderer picked up Yedioth Ahronoth’s “7 Days” supplement on Friday, she saw on its cover the judge she had tried to convince that Israel did not commit war crimes in Gaza.
“Had I known who this man was,” she says, “I would never have gone to testify.”
Dr. Siderer, a gynecologist from the southern city of Ashkelon, was severely injured when a Grad rocket hit a local mall. When Judge Richard Goldstone was appointed to investigate the Israel Defense Forces’ activity in the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead, Dr. Siderer was one of the only people to testify in favor of Israel.
She flew to Geneva and spent hours telling her story and the story of southern Israel’s rocket-stricken residents to the Goldstone committee. But in the final report released by committee, she was mentioned in only four lines.
After reading the Yedioth Ahronoth investigation, which revealed Goldstone’s dark past as a South African judge under the Apartheid regime, she felt relieved.
“A year ago I met a friend,” she recalls. “He had lived in South Africa for many years and had heard about Goldstone’s actions. He told me, ‘One day the world will know about the cruel decisions he was responsible for.’ Today I know what he was talking about.”
Dr. Siderer is angry. “Goldstone is a hypocrite. I am simply speechless,” she says. “Today we know that he is in no way neutral, that his hands are not clean. I was amazed.
6:00AM: Lebanon has accused Israel of confiscating 185 goats.
I kid you not.
But don’t think this is the first Israeli animal-related aggression on the northern Border.
A year earlier, UN soldiers shot down an Israeli bull which crossed the border into Lebanon in order to drink from the same pool. The bull was shot after trying to storm the UN forces.
In other words, in all the time since they’ve been deployed in southern Lebanon, UN forces have done nothing against Hizbullah but have shot an Israeli bull.
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