All too familiar

Some parties involved in the on-again, off-again Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations are scrambling for ways to extend the deadline for these stalled talks set for   April 29.

The delaying tactics are now getting all too familiar to be taken seriously; it seems that the Palestinians are stuck with this endless series whose occasional novelty is brought by the script of this or that Israeli prime minister.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas had said he would consider another deadline, beyond the decided April 29 target, if Israel goes ahead, as initially agreed, and frees the fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners.

The prisoners include 26 long-serving Palestinians, among them Fateh senior member Marwan Barghouthi; they were supposed to be released on April 1, but the date came and went and they are still in jail.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, master playwright, has come up with more conditions for freeing the jailed Palestinians, going against the initial agreement.

He wants the Palestinian, inter alia, to consent to another deadline for the peace negotiations that would last until April 2015.

And, thrown in for good measure, he is extorting the US as well, by calling for the release of Jonathan Pollard, jailed in the US for spying for Israel.

As such, Israel wants the peace process to be extended for some more time — to help it colonise whatever is left of Palestinian lands — on its terms.

One wouldn’t be surprised to see the US comply. It did on other occasions.

But for how long will the international community accept this travesty of “process”?

The recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and the Israeli control over the Jordan River border crossing are top contentious issues, which, besides settlement expansion and the Palestinians’ right of return, if not solved, make arriving at a peaceful solution impossible.

Insisting on the same conditions, wrapped in whatever language, is insulting the world’s intelligence. Only the world seems willing to allow itself to be insulted.

And so the “peace process” trundles along for some more time.