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One of the issues reportedly holding up Washington’s letter to Jerusalem regarding US<br />
commitments in exchange for an additional 90-day settlement freeze is whether borders<br />
will be the focus of the first three months of negotiations.<br />
The Palestinians want the border issue to be the focus of the start of the talks, arguing<br />
that once the borders were set it would be clear where Israel could and could not build.<br />
But Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s position is that border issues cannot be<br />
divorced from other core issues such as security arrangements and Israel’s demands that<br />
the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people – something<br />
that would be tantamount to their accepting that the descendents of Palestinian<br />
refugees would not be allowed to return to Israel.<br />
Netanyahu is also apparently unwilling to pledge to wrap up an agreement on borders<br />
during the time of a settlement freeze. And the US, for its part, is reportedly unwilling to<br />
commit in writing that this would be the last settlement freeze it would request,<br />
apparently wanting to keep open the option of another freeze if the border issue is not<br />
wrapped up during one 90- day freeze.<br />
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, meanwhile, said at a meeting with the Pensioners Union<br />
on Thursday in Tel Aviv that to move the negotiations forward, it may be necessary to<br />
change the composition of the coalition and bring in Kadima.<br />
“There is a certain contradiction between the structure of the government and the<br />
chances of deepening the negotiations,” he said.<br />
“We *the Labor Party+ joined the government so it would go in that direction, and we are<br />
going that way but still not reaching the destination. If it turns out that this government<br />
in its current configuration can’t move forward in a diplomatic process, it will be<br />
necessary to weigh expanding it and creating a national unity government,” he said.<br />
Former prime minister Ehud Olmert, meanwhile, took Netanyahu to task Thursday for<br />
not agreeing to a US demand to extend the settlement freeze.<br />
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