Conflict Blotter

To mark Condi’s seventh trip to the region this year, I’m going to jot down some thoughts on the nascent peace process and the Annapolis confererence slated for late November or December. First, people still aren’t taking this very seriously by and large, despite Condi’s warnings to journalists on Monday. Palestinians, Israelis, journalists, etc, tend […]

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If we connect a few dots that have emerged over the past week or so, it would appear that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has begun quietly making the necessary political preparations that will allow him to make substantive concessions to the Palestinians on Jerusalem and outposts.
On October 1, the government moved the West Bank […]

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Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon in yesterday’s cabinet meeting as quoted in today’s Maariv:
We have to talk to the Palestinians about handing over the neighborhoods in East Jerusalem to them. Anyone who thinks that it is possible to go to the conference and talk about a National Insurance Institute in the Palestinian state does not […]

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Yesterday and again today the Israeli press is awash with reports that Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas have been secretly toiling away at final status talks in recent months.
Yediot Aharanot reported yesterday that the two planned to present a joint document on the core issues at a US sponsored peace conference in November.
The two [Olmert […]

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Israeli PM Ehud Olmert’s decision to release 250 prisoners is no service to Abbas. The number is paltry compared with the 12,000 Palestinian prisoners currently languishing in Israeli jails. And why were only Fatah prisoners included in the release? It’s one thing to ignore Hamas for the time being, but what about the PFLP or […]

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At today’s summit in Sharm al Sheikh look for Israel to make a number of minor concessions to Abbas, such as increased security cooperation, shipments of armoured cars and bulletproof vests to West Bank security forces, issuing more VIP permits to Palestinian businessmen, and the release of more Palestinian tax dollars.
But Olmert has already indicated […]

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