Livni blocks unity government on pro-Palestinian pretext, Abbas frees Hamas terrorists

debkafile‘s military sources report that Sunday, Feb. 22, the Palestinian Authority on orders from chairman Mahmoud Abbas began releasing Hamas terrorists detained as part of his commitment to join forces with Israel to combat Palestinian terror. Abbas did not consult Israel before freeing the first batch of 21 prisoners.
In the Gaza Strip, Hamas began releasing activists of Abbas’ Fatah.
Our sources reveal that, under pressure from Washington, prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni agreed to their transfer to the West Bank, where they took part in a conference of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s executive committee last Saturday.
debkafile‘s military sources warn that the reopening of the covert corridor to terrorist traffic between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is a recipe for the revival of Palestinian attacks against central Israel, Hamas’ long-held goal.
While Israel’s unity talks stumble forward, the rival Palestinian Fatah and Hamas are on a fast-moving secret track towards a power-sharing accord.
It is Abbas’ intention to unveil his Palestinian unity administration simultaneously with the presentation of Binyamin Netanyahu’s broad national government. By this means, he expects to maneuver the Americans into non-cooperation with Israel unless its new government swallows the Hamas component of a legitimate Palestinian government.
Hamas, for its part, is making hay. Not only are the Islamist fundamentalists not asked to meet international demands and give up their avowed aim to destroy Israel, they have cornered Abbas by requiring him to give up his security partnership with the United States and Israel. He has responded with a directive to Fatah negotiators to promise that their joint regime will in time edge out of this partnership.
The undercover Palestinian moves climax Wednesday, Feb. 25 at a formal Palestinian reconciliation conference in Cairo chaired by Egypt’s intelligence minister and senior Palestinian negotiator Gen. Omar Suleiman.
Cairo has reopened Gaza’s Rafah gateway for three days as a gesture to Hamas.
Abbas is therefore moving along his own underhand track unrelated to the Palestinian pretext Kadima’s Livni is using to opt out of Netanyahu’s coalition government. She wants him to commit to the two-state solution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict as his government’s top priority. Netanyahu argues that the Olmert-Livni talks with Abbas over many months got nowhere, while the perils posed by Iran and its advance on Israel’s borders are immediate and existential.
Some of Livni’s key associates in Kadima have launched their own freelance approach to Abbas. It aims at discrediting the Netanyahu administration from the moment he presents his lineup to the president. At that moment, on their advice, Palestinian Authority leaders will announce the break-off of contacts with Israel until the new Israeli prime minister publicly states his commitment to a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel and a halt to settlement expansion.
Livni’s close circle is thus hoping to use the Palestinians as a blunderbuss to beat the Netanyahu government into accepting Kadima’s point of view or face international condemnation.