Q. The Quartet met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders last week and announced that within three months the two sides would submit their views on final status issues involving territory and security. Does this represent any sort of real progress?
Q. Israel and Hamas have agreed to exchange more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit? Why now, after more than five years of negotiating?
A. The primary reasons for the timing appear to have less to do with negotiating concessions--though both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Hamas appear to have made last-minute concessions--and more to do with the regional strategic issues that set the scene for the deal-clinching concessions. Both Netanyahu and Hamas are interested in lowering the prestige of Fateh and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, following the seeming success of Abbas' recent initiative at the United Nations, which both oppose. The prisoner exchange does precisely that, particularly in light of the Israel-Hamas agreement not to release Fateh leader Marwan Barghouti.
