WarSclerotic

Netanyahu breaks off peace talks over Palestinian pact with Hamas. US may suspend PLO recognition, DEBKAfile, April 23, 2014

Leaving aside its deleterious impact on the peace process with Israel, it means that Abu Mazen has publicly allied himself and his party with the fundamentalist Hamas, whose Gaza domain is under Egyptian army siege for abetting and hiding fugitive Muslim Brotherhood activists. Gaza’s Hamas rulers have granted the Brothers a base for running terrorist networks in Cairo and other Egyptian cities.

Another Fatah-Hamas unity pact

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced Wednesday night, April 23, that Israel is breaking off peace talks with the Palestinians after Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah signed a unity pact with Hamas in Gaza City. The United States informed Abbas that if Hamas and Jihad Islami, both listed as terrorist organizations, were co-opted to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Washington would discontinue its annual recognition of the PLO.

Fatah PLO members from the West Bank, headed by Azzam al-Ahmad, and Hamas, led by Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniya and deputy party leader Mussa Abu Marzuq, signed a pact in Gaza City Wednesday, April 23, to establish a unity government “within five weeks” and hold presidential and parliamentary elections in six months.

They carefully sidestepped the tough issues, such as the choice of prime minister, Hamas’s missile arsenal and the united government’s political strategy.

This is not the first power-sharing pact Fatah and Hamas have signed and is unlikely to be the last.

Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) in advance that he must choose between peace negotiations with Israel and a unity accord with the radical Hamas, which is totally opposed to negotiations with Israel and refuses to renounce force.

Yet Netanyahu did nothing to prevent a Fatah delegation traveling from Ramallah to Gaza City through Israel. Neither did he follow through on his threat of sanctions against high-ranking Palestinian officials for their unilateral application to UN bodies in violation of their pledges to Israel and their peace broker, US Secretary of State John Kerry. Application of the travel sanction, for instance, would have stopped Assam al Ahmad from reaching Gaza City.

These questions, put by DEBKAfile, betray the ridiculous state of the current Middle East peace process and the muddled, illogical steps pursued by Abbas, who seems to be firing frenziedly in all directions.

Two months ago, after posting Palestinian membership applications to 15 UN bodies, Abbas sent one of his trusties, Jibril Rajoub, to Tehran to start a dialogue between the Palestinian Authority and Iran.

He came back with a fresh assortment of gems: “If the Palestinians had a nuclear bomb they would drop it on Israel,”he remarked, and “Hitler could have taken lessons from Israel on how to build concentration camps.”

Yet he continued to travel around Israel on a VIP pass and was invited to speak on Israeli television and radio where he disseminated a message of moderation and tolerance in the name of his master.

Tuesday, April 22, Abu Mazen invited Israel reporters to his office in Ramallah to lay down new conditions for extending negotiations for three months beyond the April 29 deadline, although by then his representatives were on their way to Gaza City. One condition was to devote all future discussions to the question of borders.

He also announced that he was ready to dissolve the Palestinian Authority and hand the keys over to Israel, a threat which soon proved to be unfeasible.

Kerry and Netanyahu’s emissary to the peace talks, Yitzhak Molcho, say that hundreds of hours have been spent at the table turning over every last detail of the future borders of the Palestinian state, including Jerusalem, and laying out the areas to be swapped.

The demands, conditions, stipulations and decisions pouring out of Abu Mazen’s office in the last month or so have persuaded everyone concerned that the Palestinian leader’s mind is in a total muddle. No one in Jerusalem or Washington can figure out what he wants. And even his closest aides believe that he doesn’t know his own mind and are afraid of what he may dream up next.

In Gaza City, meanwhile, his Fatah and the rival Hamas celebrated their umpteenth unity pact in nine years, although not a single clause of any of the foregoing documents was ever implemented.

This one is different in one critical sense. Leaving aside its deleterious impact on the peace process with Israel, it means that Abu Mazen has publicly allied himself and his party with the fundamentalist Hamas, whose Gaza domain is under Egyptian army siege for abetting and hiding fugitive Muslim Brotherhood activists. Gaza’s Hamas rulers have granted the Brothers a base for running terrorist networks in Cairo and other Egyptian cities.

As an integral part of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas is also condemned as a foe by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. How to explain the logic of Mahmoud Abbas’s resort to such dangerous lengths to avoid peace talks with Israel by placing the entire Palestinian movement in opposition to the leading Arab governments?

As Fatah, Hamas restore ties, Israel cancels peace talks meeting | The Times of Israel.

After unity agreement is struck, Netanyahu castigates Abbas for ‘choosing Hamas and not peace’

IAF targets Gaza terror cell preparing to launch rockets into Israel | JPost | Israel News.

( 19:58 – 4 rocket volleys from Gaza  in last 5 mins… –  JW )

By YAAKOV LAPPIN, REUTERS

 LAST UPDATED: 04/23/2014 17:40

Shin Bet identifies terror cell, attempts to thwart “imminent threat to Israeli security,” but strike misses target.

The IAF attempted  to strike a terror cell in the Gaza Strip that was preparing to fire rockets into Israel on Wednesday, security sources said.

The terror cell was identified by the Shin Bet (Israeli Security Agency) and constituted an imminent threat to Israeli security, according to the sources.

The IAF acknowledged that the strike missed its target. Medical officials in the Hamas-ruled territory said
that four people were wounded in the strike.

The attack came two days after terrorists in the Palestinian enclave launched seven rockets into southern Israel.

There was no immediate word on the identities of those wounded in the air strike, launched just after Hamas Islamists and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organization announced a unity agreement in Gaza City.

Secretary Kerry will now bring Worldwide peace and prosperity, Dan Miller in Panama, Dan Miller, April 23, 2014

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by my (imaginary) friend, the Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the great State of Confusion Utopia. He is a founding member of CCCEB (Climate Change Causes Everything Bad), a charter member of President Obama’s Go For it Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee. He is also justly proud of his expertise in the care and breeding of unicorns, for which his Save the Unicorns Foundation received substantial Federal grants after President Obama’s approval. 

We are honored to have a post of this caliber by a quintessential Librul such as the Senator. Without further delay, here is the Senator’s article, followed by my own brief observations.

********************

Having concluded that his massive but uncluttered intellect should not be limited to the Middle East, Secretary Kerry is extending
his heroically historic efforts to the entire world.

I can see whirled peas from here!

We all desire peace with our neighbors, but petty misunderstandings often get in our way. If a dog salutes your rose bush instead of his owner’s because he is mistaken about property lines, if an army officer becomes upset and shoots others at his workplace, if the undocumented pilot of an airliner flies too close to a World Trade Center tower — perhaps as an act of love toward passengers who might want to take photos — and mistakenly crashes into it, or Palestinians erroneously conclude that members of a Jewish family in Itmar, Israel want post-birth abortions, it’s all the same: excessive thinking leads to cluttered minds which cause simple misunderstandings. This concept applies equally to nations, and under Secretary Kerry’s stewardship our foreign policy has centered around it.

Secretary Kerry’ own thinking has never been cluttered and has therefore always always been clear. He will devote the remainder of his service on behalf of the United States of Obama to the Herculean task of cleansing all remaining trifles of no importance from our foreign policy and to focusing solely on the Big Picture as seen through the lens of magical reality: “fiction that integrates elements of fantasy into otherwise realistic settings.” Secretary Kerry’s Israel – Palestinian peace process and the P5+1 negotiations with peace-loving Iran demonstrate the ample benefits of this approach, which he will soon implement worldwide. All debate is over on how our foreign policy is to be pursued.

Islam and the curse of Islamophobia

Islamophobes consider Islam the enemy of civilization. Try, if you can, to stomach this obscene presentation:

As President Obama reminded us during His address in Cairo in 2009, Islam is the religion not only of peace but also of enlightened social and scientific progress. I feel compelled to repeat just a few of His awe-inspiring words before continuing.

As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

Never, during His entire life, has President Obama ever spoken more truthfully, displayed greater candor or better demonstrated the benefits of a totally cleansed mind.

His Supreme Holiness Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, speaks often and passionately of peace. So does Iranian President Rouhani. I have studied with great diligence the approved English translations of their inspired words; no doubt of any sort whatever can be harbored by anyone whose mind is uncluttered that they are totally sincere. Would they lie to us? They probably don’t even know the meaning of the word “lie” because — like President Obama — no adherent to the faith of Mohamed could ever be less than truthful and candid; Islam forbids it. 

It is on these firm and uncluttered bases of magical reality that Secretary Kerry has dealt with the Jewish problem that had for centuries, indeed even millenia, prevented peace in the Middle East. He has dealt in an equally masterful fashion with baseless suspicions that Iran seeks to obtain — and even to use — nuclear weapons against her enemies, including Israel. The rest of the world is next, for Secretary Kerry.

Korea

As explained in this article, Secretary Kerry is well on the way to achieving not only an entire Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons but a peacefully re-unified Korea. His success is assured because he is using road maps comparable to those used successfully in the Israel – Palestinian peace process and in  the p5 + 1 negotiations with Iran.

Elsewhere

Secretary Kerry has many more heretofore untraveled roads to walk down. He must bring peace to all of Russia including Europe and her appendage, Britain. There are problems in Latin America, notably in Venezuela. There, right-wing extremists (terrorists) are trying to undermine the stability of the democratically elected government of late lamented President Chávez’ brilliant successor, President Maduro. Magic realism must prevail, as well expressed by an article in the Buenos Aires Herald.

In Venezuela, after the death of the charismatic, controversial and populist Hugo Chávez, his hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro, has transformed the image of Chávez into a founding father of a sort, comparable only to the beloved father of Independence, Simón Bolívar. In the middle of a profound economic, social and political crisis, Maduro has confided that he believes that Chávez visits him in the form of a little bird. The opposition in Venezuela also seems to have taken a few things right out of a García Márquez novel. Some of the opposition leaders that denounce the government as dictatorial lack democratic credentials themselves, as they were directly involved in the 2002 military coup attempt.

Cluttered minds, combined with the loss or even diminution of magic realism, would cause mistakes leading to instability in other equally democratic nations throughout the region. With his mind uncluttered by obsolete notions and irrelevant facts and well grounded in the indisputable premise that great strength lies in great weakness, the Peace of Secretary Kerry that passeth all mortal understanding is certain to prevail in Russia and Venezuela. Then, he will move on to other regions, ever onward and upward forever. History will revere him as the Dr. Eisenbarth of foreign policy.

For those whose understanding of German is limited, here’s a partial translation of the song about Dr. Eisenbarth

My Name is Doctor Eisenbarth
TextDilly dally do dum dee!
For curing people I’ve an art,
Dilly dally do dum dee!
My treatment makes the blind men walk,
Dilly dally do dum dee!
And help the lame to see and talk,
Dilly dally do dum dee!

At Potsdam once i cured a man,
King Frederick´s chef i dit trepan
I took my hatchet to his head;
Poor fellow , now he´s lying dead.

At Ulm i gave a jab for pox,
The man´s blood ran right to his socks.
This vaccination stunt’s a hit,

My needle is a roasting spit.
The sexton’s son at Dideldum
I gave ten pounds of opium.
He fell asleep; years passet away,

And still he sleeps until this day.
In Vienna once a man wars ill.
His hollow tooth I cured with skill,
I took my gun and blasted it.

Bless you, Secretary Kerry! May you live long and prosper in your toils for the United States of Obama.

***************

Editor’s comments:

Senator Librul has done a masterful job of stating, clearly and succinctly, Secretary Kerry’s librul positions on foreign affairs. Anyone with a third, or perhaps as much as half, of a brain will certainly agree with him.

Obama’s credibility is gone, Israel Hayom, Richard Baehr, April 23, 2014

(Where, Oh Where, might it have gone? — DM)

A new Fox News poll suggests that 61 percent of Americans think their president is a liar. This poll test was not the kind of softer characterization of a politician in terms of whether he or she is honest and trustworthy. This large majority of voters thinks Barack Obama lies about significant things most of the time or some of the time. Perhaps the most astounding component of the survey results is that 38% of Democrats think Obama is a liar.

Two lies in particular have badly damaged Obama’s reputation and standing. What has been called “the lie of the year,” was the oft-repeated claim (repeated dozens of times over the past few years) that as a result of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”), “if you liked your health insurance plan, you could keep your health insurance plan,” “if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor,” and “if you liked your hospital, you could keep your hospital.”

After close to 6 million holders of individual health insurance plans had their plans terminated due to noncompliance with new Obamacare requirements for coverage, the administration tried to defend itself with a policy of misdirection, arguing that the existing plans were substandard or that what they had really meant to say was that you could keep your plan, your doctor and your hospital, but only if they met the new plan requirements.

This is what is called digging a deeper hole for yourself, and it is apparent from recent polls on the president’s approval rating, the public’s views on Obamacare, and various midterm election races, that real damage has been done to the president and his party.

There are still groups where majorities defend the president regardless of what he says or does (or does not do) — among them African-Americans, Hispanics, and women. And it is apparent that the campaign season for 2014 will feature naked appeals to these groups in attempts to create anger among them as victims of Republican machinations. Normally, in midterm elections, a much smaller percentage of eligible voters show up to vote than in presidential election years, and they skew older, whiter, and more Republican than in presidential election years, when the electorate is more favorable to Democrats. Obama and his allies now accuse Republicans of trying to suppress black voters by requiring voter ID cards, conducting a war on women, conducting a war on Hispanics by not agreeing to citizenship for 12 million illegal immigrants, and so on. Make people angry, and hope they show up at the polls to deal a blow to their enemies.

Of course, the stories being spread about the alleged crimes committed by Republicans against Democratic voting groups are as truthful as the lies about the impact of Obamacare on the individual health insurance market. They also suggest a basic disrespect for the intelligence of voters, though maybe Obama and the Democrats know something about their supporters.

The second big lie that has badly damaged the administration concerned the National Security Agency’s domestic spying activities and its collaboration in this effort with major technology companies. This lie has been particularly damaging among younger voters, who are more aware of privacy issues with social networks, and have some of the same fears of big government listening in on them as they do with Google or Facebook learning everything about them and their behavior patterns and using this information to sell more expensive targeted advertising on their sites.

The president and his team are primarily concerned with domestic policy, and doing what they can to take from the more successful and productive Americans in order to give to those who have been far less successful for whatever reason. If failure is a result of lack of effort, it is no different than if due to a lack of opportunity, discrimination, or lesser skills. There is a serious leveling process underway under the guise of fighting inequality. The administration’s favored economists now argue that accumulation of wealth is in and of itself problematic.

If the president has had a coherent foreign policy, it has been that “we are not like George W. Bush” and that the U.S. wants to show its respect for Islam and Islamic countries, rather than fight with them. On this second score, many Americans are also tired of overseas wars and commitments, and it is not at all clear whether the administration is leading or following the public on this. As for making nice with the Islamic world, it has never been clear whether this reflects the president’s upbringing in Indonesia, or is just him distancing himself from Bush.

In any case, when most Americans believe that Obama lies about the big things most of the time, what must the leaders of other nations think about the value of the president’s word? Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have concluded that whatever the president says, he carries asmall stick, not exactly what Teddy Roosevelt had in mind. So Putin will do as he chooses, taking actions that may not be in the long-term interests of his country but are done without fear of American intervention or serious effort to stop him. Obama will not be ordering any drone strikes against Russian forces in Crimea or eastern Ukraine as he does to destroy al-Qaida groups in Yemen or Pakistan. Putin has concluded that when it comes to Russia’s sphere of influence, America is in retreat, whatever the president may say.

Israel of course has to make a judgment about another Obama pledge or series of pledges — that Iran will not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons, and that all options remain on the table to deal with Iran if it tries to break out to complete its nuclear program. There has been a noticeable softening of American concerns since negotiations have begun with the Iranians on their nuclear activities.

It may now be acceptable for Iran to have nuclear activities (continued enrichment), as long as we have no evidence it is making bombs. We will not push too hard to find evidence of any weaponization programs underway. We will respect Iran’s assurances that they have shown inspectors all the sites they need to see. Maybe it is acceptable that the Arak heavy-water reactor continues to function. And maybe it is safe to conclude a tentative deal with Iran that provides it with billions in cash that had been frozen in American accounts, significant relief from sanctions as far as oil sales and other export activities, and a chance for Iran to begin to promote itself to hungry western companies eager to invest in, buy from, or sell into Iran. Already the French and German industrial giants are lining up in Tehran. And finally, how much security do the Western nations need to create in terms of lengthening any breakout potential for Iran’s nuclear program to become a bomb making program? A few months? A year?

If Iran goes rogue after signing the supposed final nuclear deal with the P5+1, does a military option remain for Obama? It is hard to believe that Israeli leaders can convince themselves of that, given how markedly America has softened its stance the last year. There are plenty of articles now in influential journals for the foreign policy establishment that the best approach for dealing with an Iran with nuclear weapons is containment. After all, the mullahs are rational and would never get into a nuclear war with Israel, which supposedly has more bombs. So they might try to use their nukes for political leverage abroad, but at least there is no radioactive fallout from that. Somehow, if Iranian behavior becomes more malicious because they can threaten nations more effectively, this is not seen as a big problem, as long as they only threaten nations to get what they want.

Israel is aware that Iranian proxies have been trying to kill Israelis for years at a time when Iran was not a nuclear power, just as they have sponsored or carried out the killing of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel can not discount Iranian intentions on the potential use of nuclear weapons given past threats, and understands the added danger in the neighborhood once they get them, even if they do not use them. Iran clearly does not take Obama at his word, and has rolled the hapless John Kerry in the Geneva nuclear negotiations.

Americans understand that Obama lied on Benghazi, the Internal Revenue Service targeting, Obamacare and NSA spying. Abroad, our enemies — yes, we still have them — are already acting and will continue to act on their interpretation that the president is all talk. This of course, is a nicer way of saying that they too think he is a liar.

Haniyeh: Palestinian unity government within five weeks, Ynetnews, April 23, 2014

Hamas leader makes announcement after his party and Fatah sign reconciliation deal in Gaza, agree to hold national elections within six months.

Fatah and Hamas have reached an agreement to hold form a unity government within five weeks, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told reporters in Gaza on Wednesday, after the warring factions signed a deal to end years of internecine hostilities that effectively separated the West Bank and Gaza Strip from one another.

Haniyeh further said new elections would be held within six months for first time since a 2006 ballot saw Hamas saw trounce Fatah in an unexpected territories-wide victory.

Similar reconcilation agreements were reached in principle in the past but never implemented. Hamas seized Gaza from Abbas in 2007, leaving him with only parts of the West Bank. Both sides have become entrenched in their territories.

Palestinian unity announced: Haniyeh with Hamas official Abu Marzook and PLO representative Bassam Salhi (Photo: Reuters)

Haniyeh praised the agreement, saying “national reconcilaition, ending the division and mending the rift has become a national responsibility.”

The deal, Haniyeh said, comes “at a time of an assault on the Palestinian cause, assault on the al-Aqsa mosque and a time when the entirety of Jerusalem is being painted Jewish.”

Before the official press conference, Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported that there had been an agreement in principle to form a unity government which would be led by either Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas or former senior Hamas official Nasser al-Shaer.

A Palestinian official who attended Tuesday’s late-night meeting said Wednesday morning there had been an “agreement in principle” on forming a “government of experts,” a term for a cabinet staffed by technocrats rather than politicians.

The agreement, between members of the PLO and Hamas, was reached following talks in Gaza City which began on Tuesday evening, a member of the PLO who wished to remain anonymous told AFP.

The Palestinian factions were expected to announce the deal in a press conference from Gaza on Wednesday afternoon.

“There has also been progress on the holding of future elections and the composition of the PLO,” said the Palestinian official without giving further details.

Another Palestinian official told Ma’an Abbas was expected to issue a presidential decree determining a date for elections to the presidency, the legislative council and the Palestinian National Authority.

“A positive atmosphere prevailed” during the meeting, Hamas member Khalil al-Hayya said in a statement on Wednesday, Ma’an reported.

Fatah and Hamas delegations meet in Gaza (Photo: AFP)

During a meeting with Austrian Foreign Affairs Minister Sebastian Kurz, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Abbas “instead of moving into peace with Israel, (is) moving into peace with Hamas.”

“He has to choose. Does he want peace with Hamas or peace with Israel. You can have one but not the other. I hope he chooses peace (with Israel), so far he hasn’t done so,” Netanyahu said, repeating comments he made on Monday.

Netanyahu on Monday also belittled the PA’s threat to dismantle, saying: “Yesterday the Palestinian Authority discussed dismantling, today it is mulling uniting with Hamas. Let them decide whether to dismantle or unite.”

“We can not achieve peace without reconciliation first. Reconciliation is a Palestinian national priority,” replied the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat.

But Palestinian hopes of reconciliation have been dashed before. Since 2011, Hamas and Fatah have failed to implement an Egyptian-brokered unity deal because of disputes over power-sharing and the handling of conflict with Israel.

“People have heard the same thing on many occasions but each time the agreement was violated by Fatah or Hamas. Clearly, both sides do not meet their commitments,” Samir Awad, a professor of political science at Birzeit University in the West Bank, told AFP.

“Reconciliation (inter-Palestinian) and negotiations (with Israel) are now tactics. Each side has its own calculations and reconciliation has little substance on the ground. It could derail at any moment,” added another political scientist, Hani al-Masri.

The PLO delegation, who arrived Tuesday in the Gaza Strip, is headed by Azzam al-Ahmad, a leader of the nationalist movement Fatah. He was greeted by Haniyeh and his number two, Moussa Abu Marzouq.

“I called to implement the Palestinian reconciliation in order to form one government, one political system and one national program,” Haniyeh said

.Abbas meeting with Fatah delegation to Gaza (Photo: AFP)

Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, told reporters on Tuesday that if peace talks did not continue, Israel would be obliged to take on the administrative and financial burden of governing Palestinian areas.

Kerry revived the peace talks in July after a nearly three-year hiatus, with the aim of ending a decades-old conflict and establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The negotiations plunged into crisis this month when Israel refused to carry out the last of four waves of prisoner releases unless it received assurances the Palestinian leadership would continue the talks beyond the end of April.

After Israel failed to free the prisoners, Abbas responded by signing 15 international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war and occupations. Israel condemned the move as a unilateral step toward statehood.

Hamas is adamantly opposed to negotiations with Israel, that have recently reached an impasse with each side refusing the demands of the other to continue negotiations beyond the April 29 deadline.

Netanyahu: Abbas must choose between Israel and Hamas, Times of Israel, April 23, 2014

Amid reports of Fatah-Hamas reconciliation, PM says he hopes Palestinians opt for peace, even if ‘so far’ they haven’t.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz in Jerusalem on April 23, 2014. (photo credit: Kobi Gideon/GPO/Flash 90)

The Palestinian Authority can either make peace with Hamas or with Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday, warning PA President Mahmoud Abbas that a reported reconciliation deal with the terrorist organization ruling Gaza would mean the end of the current, US-mediated effort to negotiate a peace deal.

“Instead of moving into peace with Israel, he’s moving into peace with Hamas,” Netanyahu said. “He has to choose: Does he want peace with Hamas or peace with Israel? You can have one but not the other. I hope he chooses peace; so far he hasn’t done so.”

During a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Israel was trying to extend peace negotiations with the Palestinians beyond their April 29 deadline, but blamed Abbas for “raising additional conditions” that he knows Jerusalem cannot accept.

Abbas told a group of Israeli journalists Tuesday that the Palestinians would agree to extend negotiations with Israel by nine months on the condition that Israel agreed to immediately commence discussing the borders of the future Palestinian state, and froze settlement construction, including in East Jerusalem.

Netanyahu’s remarks echoed statements made Tuesday by Israeli officials who wished to remain anonymous. They said Abbas was laying down unacceptable terms in order to allow talks to fail without taking the blame.

“The meaning of all these things is that he’s not interested in peace,” one official was quoted by Ynet as saying. “Someone who wants peace does not present time after time conditions he knows Israel cannot accept.”

Abbas also said that Ramallah was still expecting the release of 30 pre-Oslo prisoners as part of the agreement to hold peace talks, and that he had rejected an Israeli demand to deport a number of them — some of whom hold Israeli citizenship.

Another Israeli official told AFP that settlement building in Jerusalem would not be frozen and that Israel had never agreed to discuss the border issue separately from other core issues.

Those include Palestinians refugees, the fate of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as a capital, security and mutual recognition.

“It is impossible to define borders before an agreement on the other issues,” the Israeli official said.

He also reiterated that Israel planned on expelling toward the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, or abroad, some of the last batch of prisoners that Abbas wants freed.

“This has been clearly explained to the Palestinians. Never has Israel committed not to carry out expulsions,” he said.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the hawkish Jewish Home party, said Abbas’s threat that the collapse of talks would lead to the dismantling of the PA were nothing new.

“We are hearing again and again the refrain of the same threat that if we don’t advance, if we don’t give him what he wants, then woe is us, he will dismantle the PA,” Bennett told a conference. “I suggest to Abbas, if you’re going to shoot, then shoot, don’t talk.”

Opposition head Isaac Herzog, however, put the blame on Netanyahu, saying he had released prisoners without getting to an advance in peace talks, hurting Israel in the long run.

“The time has come for Netanyahu to decide if he wants a Jewish state or a bi-national state,” Herzog wrote on his Facebook page.

David Ignatius: Closer, but still no deal on Iran – The Washington Post.

By David Ignatius, Wednesday, April 23, 3:10 AM

As the Iran nuclear talks reach roughly the halfway point in the six-month timetable for negotiating a comprehensive agreement, both sides report slow, steady progress in closing gaps — but no deal yet.

A positive sign was a tentative plan floated this month to reduce the threat posed by Iran’s heavy-water reactor under construction at Arak. When I talked in Tehran with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in December, Arak appeared to be a deal-breaker. But negotiators seem to have found what they like to call a “win-win” solution.

The Arak compromise formula was outlined recently in the journal Arms Control Today. It proposes feeding the reactor with low-enriched fuel and operating it at lower power. The output would be more of the medical isotopes Iran says it needs and much less of the plutonium that the West fears could fuel a bomb.

“The issue is virtually resolved,” said Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Akbar Salehi, last week. The agreed proposal is “to redesign the Arak reactor and to reduce its plutonium production to one-fifth.”

Officials close to the talks note several interesting aspects of the first rounds of discussion, as negotiators push toward a tentative deadline of July 20:

●Russia has continued to play a constructive role, despite President Vladimir Putin’s confrontational behavior in Ukraine. U.S. officials believe that Putin genuinely doesn’t want a nuclear-armed Iran, and that he sees Russia’s role as an international power enhanced by its partnership in the “P5+1” coalition. The nuclear talks give Putin influence he would be reluctant to give up.

●Iran continues to mix its pragmatic stance in the negotiations with stridently anti-Western rhetoric, most recently in supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s March 21 message for the Persian New Year, known as Nowruz. Khamenei’s speech included one passage describing the Holocaust as “uncertain” and another proclaiming that Iran had a “resistance economy” that could defy Western sanctions.

A sign of Iran’s pragmatism amid its leader’s bombastic rhetoric was Salehi’s comment that Iran had “no problem” with opening its military site at Parchin to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

●Negotiators on both sides appear to be taking seriously the six-month bargaining timetable set in the interim deal reached in Geneva last November that temporarily froze Iran’s nuclear program. The official negotiating clock started ticking Jan. 20.

U.S. and European officials initially believed a rollover of the interim freeze might be needed, adding another six months after July 20. But there now appears to be renewed focus on the deadline — partly because Iran wants relief from sanctions, and partly because November’s U.S. elections may yield a more conservative Congress that’s less supportive of an agreement.

Iranian and Western negotiators are now beginning to draft proposed language for a final, comprehensive pact. They’ll begin comparing those texts next month, officials expect.

The trickiest remaining problem is limiting Iranian enrichment to a level consistent with a civilian nuclear program. The Geneva agreement affirmed Iran’s “right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” including a “mutually defined enrichment program with practical limits and transparency measures.” But what will such language mean in practice? Iran currently has 19,000 centrifuges; how many would have to be mothballed?

Secretary of State John Kerry suggested in Senate testimony this month that the U.S. goal was to extend Iran’s current “breakout” time for producing enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb from “about two months” to something longer. “So six months to 12 months is — I’m not saying that’s what we’d settle for — but even that is significantly more,” Kerry said.

A detailed explanation of possible formulas was published last month by Robert Einhorn, formerly the State Department’s top arms-control official. He noted that Iranian breakout time would be 12 months if it were allowed to operate 6,000 new generation IR-1 centrifuges with a stockpile of only 500 kilograms of 3.5 percent enriched uranium. If the number of centrifuges were cut to 2,000 and Iran were allowed 1,500 kilograms of 3.5 percent material, the breakout time would lengthen slightly to 12 to 14 months.

Negotiators will be focused on such highly technical calculations over the next three months, while the clock ticks. The deeper question is whether Khamenei’s Iran is really ready for fundamental accommodation with the West. Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace rightly cautions: “I don’t see how you can get a technical resolution to what’s essentially a political conflict.”

The details of a possible agreement are visible, but not yet the will in revolutionary Iran to compromise.

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Read more about this topic: David Ignatius: Iran’s hard-liners resist nuclear deal The Post’s View: Final Iran deal needs to balance out the concessions The Post’s View: An Iran deal worth trying — risks and all

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