Netanyahu: PA agreed to new settlement construction in exchange for prisoner release; Kerry denies

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://972mag.com/netanyahu-pa-agreed-to-new-settlements-in-exchange-for-prisoner-release/81430/

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is claiming that the Palestinian leadership agreed to new settlement construction in exchange for release of Palestinian prisoners during the current bilateral peace negotiations. There have been reports of such an understanding in the Israeli media, but no official confirmation so far.

---

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday, in no unclear language, shot down the notion.

“I want to make it extremely clear that at no time did the Palestinians in any way agree, as a matter of going back to the talks, that they somehow condone or accept the settlements,” Kerry said in Bethlehem after meeting with Abbas. “The Palestinians believe that the settlements are illegal.”

So somebody is lying, and somebody is being called a liar.

[shaayecanaan]

1. Unusual that Kerry shot it down...

normally they would leave it up to the Palestinians to do so.

Kerry does seem genuinely concerned with trying to maintain Palestinian confidence in the process.

[Israeli]

8. Agreed.

Its not the whole story tho....this is really interesting :

Kerry didn’t enter the world of politics yesterday. In Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s words, Kerry is no dupe. Not for one moment did he intend for the peace initiative to be remembered as an initiative for the release of prisoners and the expansion of settlements. He understands very well that the release of prisoners plus the expansion of settlements, minus a final status agreement, equals a third intifada plus an American disgrace, and a big deficit in the prestige of his direct supervisor, President Barack Obama.

But like the Americans say, there are no free lunches. The prisoner release-settlement construction deal is a sweet dish cut with bitterness; Kerry made clear to Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) the price that each of them separately or both of them together would have to pay for the generous advances they got during the negotiations. The price is fixed in the hard currency of relations with the United States and a bonus or penalty in European currency.

If the Israeli side is accused of sabotaging the negotiations, the American government won’t stand in the way of the Palestinians receiving full recognition by the UN of their independent state within the 1967 borders. The legal and diplomatic significance of this step is that Israel will gain the status of a state that controls the sovereign territory of a UN member state. A byproduct of this will be the loss of a grant worth hundreds of millions of euros from the “Horizon 2020'' agreement with the European Union and a serious crisis in the field of research and development. If the Palestinian side hardens its positions, Abbas won’t get to change his official title from “chairman of the Palestinian Authority” to “president of Palestine.”

When the time comes for the release of the third group of Palestinian prisoners — or at the latest, when the time comes to release the fourth and last group — HaBayit HaYehudi won’t be able to comfort its voters in the settlements with another several hundred construction permits in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Kerry didn’t recruit the heads of the Arab League to support an initiative based on the Arab-Saudi initiative for Netanyahu and Abbas to leave him in the cold. Obama didn’t give Kerry his blessing in order to sink into the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire along with him.

This Israeli winter, Netanyahu will have to decide if he wants to escape the shackles of the right and those of his own fears and to embark on new horizons in the region, or to put Israel in solitary confinement and on a road to a conflict in the territories without international backing.

Abbas will also have to do with less than what he’s convinced his people deserve. One way or another, the future won’t repeat the past.

Akiva Eldar
Columnist, Israel PulseAkiva Eldar is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor’s Israel Pulse. He was formerly a senior columnist and editorial writer for Haaretz and also served as the Hebrew daily’s US bureau chief and diplomatic correspondent. His most recent book (with Idith Zertal), Lords of the Land, on the Jewish settlements, was on the best-seller list in Israel and has been translated into English, French, German and Arabic.

Source: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/11/john-kerry-final-status-agreement-israel-palestine.html?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8499#

My faith in Obama is being restored .

[oberliner]

2. How exactly does releasing murderers help bring about peace?

I'm still not entirely grasping this concept.

[shaayecanaan]

3. These are mostly pre-1993 prisoners...

and most of them are in prison for killing, or attempting to kill, Israeli soldiers rather than civilians.

Unless you want to include the IDF within the definition of "murderers", you're probably off the mark here.

[oberliner]

4. You have no idea what you are talking about

Tsalah Ibrahim Ahmed Mugdad was sentenced to 32 years imprisonment for the murder of Israel Tennenbaum.

Tennenbaum from Moshav Vered was a farmer who also worked as a security guard at a hotel in Netanya despite being 72 years old at the time of his death. In June 1993 Tsalah broke into the hotel and murdered Israel Tennenbaum by beating him over the head with a steel rod.

Arshid A’Hamid Yusuf Yusuf was sentenced to five life sentences after having been convicted of the murders of Nadal Rabu Jaab, Adnan Ayaad Dib, Mufid Canaan, Tawfik Jaradat and Ibrahim Said Ziad by stabbing.

Al-Haj Othman Amar Mustafa was sentenced to a life sentence for his part in the murder of 48 year-old Frederick Steven Rosenfeld in June 1989.

Rosenfeld was hiking in the hills near Ariel when he came across a group of shepherds who stabbed him to death with his own knife and hid his body.

Matslah Abdallah Salama was sentenced to one life sentence for the murder of Reuven David in Petah Tikva in 1991.

Together with an accomplice, Matslah entered 59 year-old Iraqi-born Reuven David’s mini-market, tied him up, gagged him and then beat him to death, before escaping in the victim’s car. He left a wife, three children and several grandchildren.

Abu-Musa Salam Ali Atia was convicted of the murder of Isaac Rotenburg from Holon as part of an initiation rite for joining a terror organisation and sentenced to one life sentence.

He continued his work as a plasterer even after pension age and in March 1994 was at his place of work in Petah Tikva when he was attacked by two Palestinian labourers with axes. He died, aged 67, two days later.

Sha’at Aazat Shaba’an Aatafwas sentenced to 29 years’ imprisonment after having been convicted of accessory to murder and was due to be released on 14/3/2022. Sha’at drove his accomplices to and from the scene of the murder of 51 year-old Simcha Levi in Khan Yunis in 1993.

Simcha’s job was to drive Arab labourers to their place of work and on the day of her murder she picked up female labourers in Khan Yunis in the south Gaza Strip. Three terrorists disguised as women beat and stabbed her to death in her vehicle in a pre-planned attack.

Barbach Faiz Rajab Madhat was sentenced to life imprisonment for, together with his accomplices, stabbing his employer (Moshe Becker) to death.

Moshe Beker was born in Poland in 1933 and immigrated to mandate Palestine in 1935. On January 21st 1994, Moshe arrived at his orchard in Rishon L’Tsion to see whether his employee had arrived. He was ambushed there by three terrorists, who had slept on site and waited for him. They attacked him, stabbed him to death with a knife and a pair of pruning shears, and fled. Moshe, 61 at the time of his death, was survived by his wife and four children.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

5. That's it, oberliner, move the discussion away from what Nutty is claiming the

Palestinians agreed to in order to talk about the prisoners that Israel released.

[shaayecanaan]

6. The full list

Eight out of the 26 were jailed for attacks on combatants. Fair point.


1. Mohammed Ibrahim Mohammad Nasser – 1985 – Ramallah

Killed an Israeli solider

2. Rafeh Farhud Mohammad Karajeh – 1985 – Ramallah

Killed an Israeli soldier

3. Mohammad Ahmad Mahmud al-Sabbagh – 1991 – Jenin

Killed two Palestinian collaborators

4. Hazem Qassem Taher Shubeir – 1994 – Gaza

unknown

5. Hilmi Hamad Obeid al-Amawi – 1994 – Gaza

Killed a settler

6. Ahmad Saed Mohammad al-Damouni – 1990 – Gaza

Killed an Israeli soldier who was lost and ended up in a refugee camp

7. Yousef Awwad Mohammad Masalhiya – 1993 – Gaza

Killed a settler

8. Sharif Hassan Atiq Abu Dheila – 1992 – Nablus

Killed a settler

9. Mustafa Amer Mohammad Ghneimat – 1985 – Hebron

Killed two civilians

10. Ziad Mahmoud Mohammad Ghneimat – 1985 – Hebron

Killed civilians

11. Rizq Ali Khader Salah – 1993 – Bethlehem

Killed an officer and two soldiers

12. Al-Afu Musbal Nofal Shuqeir – 1986 – Salfit

Killed an Israeli sergeant

13. Muayad Salim Mahmoud Hijjeh – 1992 – Nablus

Killed an Israeli security officer by swimming from Aqaba to Eilat

14. Najeh Mohammad Badwi Muqbel – 1990 – al-Khalil

Killed an Israeli restauranteur

15. Hazza Mohammad Hazza Saedi – 1985 – Jenin

Killed a settler

16. Abdel-Rahman Yousef Mahmud al-Hajj – 1992 – Qalqiliya

Killed a settler

17. Ahmed Saed Qassam Abdelaziz – 1993 – Jenin

Killed a civilian

18. Osama Zakariya Wadie Abu Hanani – 1992 – Jenin

Killed a civilian

19. Mohammed Yousef Suleiman Turkman – 1992 – Jenin

Killed a civilian

20. Issa Nimer Jibril Abed Rabbo – 1984 – Bethlehem

Killed a civilian

21. Mohammed Musbah Khalil Ashour – 1986 – Jerusalem

Killed a taxi driver

22. Omar Issa Rajab Massoud – 1993 – Gaza

Killed an Israeli lawyer in Gaza

23. Khaled Dawud Ahmed al-Azrak – 1991 – Bethlehem

Jailed for plotting to bomb an IDF base

24. Othman Abdullah Mahmoud Bani Hassan – 1985 – Jenin

Killed two teachers

25. Asrar Mustafa Samreen – 1992 – Al-Bireh

Killed an Israeli soldier

26. Musa Izzat Musa Qar’an – 1992 – Al-Bireh

Killed an Israeli soldier

[azurnoir]

7. IMO your post clearly outlines Israel's purpose in this release

however my I remind you that Israel released these prisoners, they were specifically chosen by Israel to be released along with disclosure of their crimes, your outrage shows exactly what was hoped to be accomplished