The Last Exile

I guess it’s relatively safe to conclude that peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians will not be happening any time in the near future. Ynet News:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the Palestine Liberation Organization on Tuesday that he would resume suspended peace talks with Israel if it halts settlement building “for a specific period” and recognizes the pre-1967 borders as a basis for a Palestinian state.

“When Israel stops settlement activity for a specific period and when it recognizes the borders we are calling for, and these are the legal borders, there would be nothing to prevent us from going to negotiations to complete what we agreed to at Annapolis,” Abbas told the PLO legislature in Ramallah.

That’s that then. And in other news the Jerusalem Post carries this report:

Earlier this week, the Fatah Revolutionary Council, one of the key decision-making bodies, recommended during an emergency meeting in Ramallah that all PLO and Fatah institutions approve the proposal to extend Abbas’s term in office. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior PLO official and adviser to Abbas, said that the PLO Executive Committee, another key decision-making body, had also recommended that the PA president’s term be extended.

(…)Abbas’s term in office expired earlier this year, but he decided to stay in power after Fatah and Hamas failed to reach agreement on holding presidential and parliamentary elections. Israel allowed 17 members of the council to travel from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank to attend the two-day discussions. The PLO council, which is dominated by Abbas loyalists, is expected to vote in favor of extending his term. The council is also scheduled to approve the extension of the term of the Palestinian Legislative Council, whose 132 members were elected for four years in January 2006.

Arab democracy in action translates into English as ‘I will be your leader as long as I want’.