As part of Jerusalem’s ongoing efforts to boost the peace initiative being pushed by Secretary of State John Kerry, Israel has agreed to release “hardcore” Palestinian prisoners.

The concession may however prove insufficient to overcome Palestinian opposition to renewing negotiations between the parties. Palestinian factions have resisted exhortations by President Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to agree to talks. Abbas was one of several Palestinian officials yesterday and today who downplayed the prospects for Kerry’s peace initiative.

Palestinian officials are demanding that Israel agree in advance to a number of stipulations, and are demanding preemptive Israeli concessions on broad issues such as borders. Observers fear that the conditions are pretexts meant to avoid negotiations, as some factions have already declared that a return to negotiations would be “political suicide”:

Hassan Khraisheh, deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, told the Quds Press news agency that Abbas was committing “political suicide” by agreeing to return to the negotiating table.

Khraisheh accused Abbas of abandoning his previous demands for Israeli recognition of the pre-1967 lines and a full cessation of settlement construction as a precondition for resuming the talks, in return for “bribes,” including the release of a number of prisoners, economic benefits and work permits for Palestinians.

[Photo: RogDel / Wiki Commons]