DEBKA reports a deal to restart talks.

DEBKA published this on Nov 2. Sounds more plausible than the lease deal but maybe it is part of it. Is Iran part of this package?

Mid East talks resume January. Netanyahu relents on building freeze
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 2, 2010,

Direct Israeli-Palestinian talks, interrupted in September after less than a week, will resume in January, 2011 straight after the New Year, following a quiet deal between the US, Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, debkafile’s Washington sources disclose. Obama administration officials while admitting that two months is a long time in the Middle East are upbeat after four developments swept aside the last roadblocks:

    1. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agreed to a second settlement construction freeze on a limited scale. The first 10-month moratorium ran out in September.

    Washington sources declined to say whether the second freeze was total or partial and what exceptions were allowed to enable Netanyahu to get a decision through his security cabinet.

    2. Saudi King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak put their weight behind persuading Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table with Israel as his only option. They told to cancel all plans for UN Security Council recognition of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood within -re-1967 boundaries. The PA chairman has complied with their demands.

    3. In the two months before the talks resume, Abbas agreed to join the Saudi-Egyptian effort to patch up the quarrel between his Fatah and the Hams extremists with a view to signing a reconciliation accord by early January so that the Palestinians would be represented by a unified West Bank-Gaza Strip delegation.

    Abbas has taken the first step of withdrawing from the Fatah-Hamas talks which began last month in Damascus under the Syrian aegis.

    4. A high-ranking US official will shuttle between Jerusalem and Ramallah in the weeks remaining up to January to make sure the Israelis and Palestinians stick to the deal and don’t change their minds. debkafile’s Washington sources report that President Barack Obama has not yet decided to whom to assign the task, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a favorite.

    5. The one official who will not longer be seen on the Israel-Palestinian peace track is George Mitchell. He secretly resigned as Presidential Special Envoy last month but agreed to delay the announcement until his successor is in place.

November 6, 2010 | 6 Comments »

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6 Comments / 6 Comments

  3. Actually Mr. Netanyahu is, on his own mind, a perfect fit for the israeli scene developed since 1973.
    One must recall the memories of two fundamentally Israeli character traits.
    The “chutzpan”. And ISRABLOF.
    From that context was built by a totally controlled media, a so called judicial, police and military staffs. Voila! The Ben Gurion “new israeli” was born. Lately the same media label the hatchlings, “ethrogim”.
    It was bound to happen and did.
    That setting cannot be corrected from within. It must be severed and replaced if we expect credible leadership rather than ISRABLOFERISM offered by grown up “chutzpanim”.
    Mr. Netanyahu offers a perfect example of that and is enhanced by the likes of Barak, Peres and other such to form the present day Oslo cadre.

  4. laura:

    Why would Bibi agree to anything with a now politically weakened obama?

    Why? I’ll tell you why. Bibi is a traitor who is quite pleased to sell out Israel. He is very happy with his

    new found Islamiofascist customers for Israeli exports. He loves dollars a lot more than his country.

  5. I don’t believe now or ever in the past that Obama was the main reason BB seems to be capitulating to pressure.

    BB wants to keep his current coalition together as it protects him from both right and left and he can play when he chooses one against the other. Obama pressure then is real but not the most critical of BB’s reasons. It’s all internal Israeli politics and a PM who wants to keep his seat above all else.

    Between Ehud Barak and Barak Obama for BB Ehud Barak is more important and critical. Barak needs the process to look like it’s alive to stay in office and keep Labor in the coalition. For BB that’s the real pressure.