Palestinian chief negotiator Sa’ib Erekat and Israeli minister Sylvan Shalom, who was appointed by the prime minister to head up negotiations with the Palestinians, met secretly in the Jordanian capital on Thursday. The Amman meeting, which was approved by both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, apparently grew out of a phone call Netanyahu made to extend holiday greetings to Abbas last week. The agenda was to explore ways to break the impasse and return to negotiations. Undoubtedly, the 800-pound gorilla in the room was the matter of the Palestinian petition to the International Criminal Court charging Israel with war crimes. Shalom was quoted in Israeli media as saying that it doesn’t make sense to offer confidence-building gestures while the Palestinians push for criminal action in the ICC and for Israel’s expulsion from the international football league. In another indication of worsening relations between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government, it is being reported that the US government was not informed about the Erekat-Shalom meeting before the fact nor updated afterward.
Photo: Sa’ib Erekat, Chief Palestinian negotiator, gestures during a press conference in Jerusalem on March 19, 2015. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images)