BICOM

Israeli and Palestinians negotiators Tzipi Livni and Saeb Erekat met on Sunday night for the fourth time in the last 10 days – this time without US Special Envoy Martin Indyk – in an attempt to agree on a package deal for returning to final status negotiations.

According to reports, Livni asked the Palestinians to withdraw their applications to join international institutions and to freeze the proceedings for joining the UN institutions they applied to join last week, both of which were met with refusal. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon confirmed last week that the Palestinians would be officially added to the conventions on 2 May.  The Palestinians meanwhile demanded that Israel freeze all construction in Jerusalem and the entire West Bank as a precondition for beginning discussions on other subjects.

Israeli officials suggest that due to the Palestinian refusal to withdraw their applications to join international agencies, the proposed deal nearly agreed two weeks ago will now have to be revised.  Israel had been willing to release the fourth tranche of prisoners agreed in July 2013, including Israel Arabs, and an additional 400 prisoners, as well as restricting new settlement construction. The US appeared ready to release Jonathan Pollard – a US intelligence official convicted of spying for Israel ­– in return for Israel releasing Israeli-Arabs. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman confirmed that the package now under discussion included changes to the deal offered previously, in a briefing for foreign diplomats yesterday.

Indyk has returned to America for a few days, and no deal is expected before the end of Passover next week at the earliest. Based on the timeframe for negotiations agreed in July 2013, discussions between the sides on core issues of the conflict are supposed to continue until the end of April.