Hamas-related negotiations moving forward?
The negotiations for a prisoner-exchange agreement between Hamas and Israel seem to have entered a new, more productive phase, with the news-- first reported by Xinhua-- that Norwegian officials have now joined German officials in nailing down the details of the prisoner swap.
As reported by Xinhua from Gaza, the deal that's emerging will involve swapping Hamas-held Israeli POW Gilad Shalit for some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners:
- According to the sources, Israel will free 450 prisoners as soon as Shalit is handed to the Egyptian authorities and another 550 prisoners will be released once the soldier arrives in Israel.
Norway's involvement in the swap now being negotiated, Xinhua said, would include providing a home for some of the Palestinian prisoners whom Israel will not allow to stay inside the occupied territories.
Germany's involvement in mediating this issue, first revealed about ten days ago, has some political significance. Germany has previously been involved in most of the (often large-scale) prisoner swaps conducted between Hizbullah and Israel. In all these mediations, Germany's security services have built on experience of fine-tuning the often complex modalities of these swap operations that they gained during some of the spy-swap operations they orchestrated-- also between often very distrustful parties-- during the Cold War.
Germany's involvement in the current Hamas-Israel mediation marks a bit of a setback for the Egyptians, who as the past months have dragged on showed that they were either incapable of nailing down the agreement or, actually, rather unwilling to do so.
Israel's agreement to work through Germany (as well as, still, Egypt) also elevates Hamas's political standing a bit, nearer to the political standing that Hizbullah has in West European circles.
Hamas head Khaled Meshaal was in Cairo Sunday, where he held talks with the Egyptian officials who are working not just on the prisoner-swap file but also on the attempt to reconcile Hamas with Fateh sufficiently for the two to agree on a joint negotiating position with Israel and on the holding of new Palestinian elections next January.
One of the big issues on the reconciliation agenda has always been how to find a formula whereby Hamas can join the PLO for the first time ever. It is the PLO that will be negotiating the final peace agreement with Israel-- if indeed that negotiation ever happens.
Today, PNN reported from Ramallah that Salim Zaanoun, the Fathawi president of the PLO's "parliament", the Palestine National Council (PNC), has been in Egypt discussing formulas for bringing Hamas into the PNC. He will next go to Gaza to pursue those discussions.
I am interested by the role that the Egyptian secretary-general of the Arab League, and former Foreign Minister, Amr Moussa is reported as playing in these negotiations. Does this mark a dimunition of the power of the Egyptian intel boss Omar Suleiman, who previously ran them all on his own? I don't know...
Anyway, it looks as though things are moving in both these negotiation now.
Roughly two or three years too late, I would say... (All that suffering over the years in between!)
Does anyone have a link to an organization that keeps track of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails?
Or any other site that keeps track like a government agency or NGO?