The delay of the release of the fourth tranche of Palestinian prisoners and Israel’s bait that it will do so only if the Palestinians agree to extend the talks has failed to get a bite from Palestinian negotiators.
The Palestinians have repeatedly said that the agreement at the start of the nine-month negotiations was that in return for Palestine refraining from joining UN agencies, the Israelis would release 104 long-term prisoners. The prisoners talked about have already served more than 20 years in jail and their release had been agreed to in September 1999 and recorded in the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum, a copy of which continues to exist on the Israeli Knesset website.
