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Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The PA's $285 Million Dollar Electric Bill; Reconciliation with Hamas

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                     
 

                                                Arafat, former head of PLO-Now Fatah

The Palestinian Authority wants to create a state out of Judea and Samaria, ancient lands of the Jewish Israel, but they haven't bothered to pay their electric bill to Israel.  They don't have their own electric company.  Their bill is in arrears in the amount equivalent of $285 million dollars.
               
                               Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah or Palestinian Authority

John Kerry has said that Israel risks becoming an apartheid state if they don't talk to terrorists.  He's been pushing Israel who finally resisted back.  Fatah, the new PLO term for a terrorist group who said they were trying to be peaceful, hasn't been.  Their tactics are just different and not overt, but very subtle and harmful. They incite violence.  They teach the children in school to hate Jews and that they own Israel.  They even leave Israel off their maps.   Hamas continued to bombard southern Israel with missiles, mortars and rockets.
The state of Israel is the ideal example of a state that has no apartheid practices.  Though it's only 8,000 sq miles big with 6 million Jews and 1.7 million Arabs, religion is free for all.  Nobody is telling Arabs that they have to take down mosques and that they can't be higher than a synagogue like what happened to Jews in Arab countries.  Arabs are serving in the Knesset and any beautiful girl that meets the expectations can become Miss Israel.   Israel will make sure nothing like that happens.  Kerry was out of line to even say such a thing.  Senator Ted Cruz  was so upset by this unnecessary threat that he's asking Kerry to resign as Secretary of State.                                                                        
                                                                   Hamas terrorist
The USA government has sanctions on 4 terrorist countries and different Terrorist groups.
1. Syria-since December 29, 1979
2. Cuba-since March 1, 1982
3. Iran-since January 19, 1984
4. Sudan-since August 12, 1993

5. Hezbollah from Lebanon-1985
6. Al Qaeda-since 1988
7. Hamas-since October 8, 1997

Hamas and Fatah just announced another reconciliation!  That did it.  Israel is not going to listen to any more talks.  Since Hamas is on the terrorist list and Fatah has connected to them off and on and again right now, Kerry should not be expecting Israel to deal with them when they themselves will not. " Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) are foreign organizations that are designated by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as amended.   FTO designations play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business."  Yet Kerry  agreed with most all the PA's ideas and plans and would not listen to Israel's position  At the same time they have shown how inept they are in running a state by letting such a thing as an electric bill go unpaid to the very people they intend to live next door to in peace?  

What Israel is going to do about the electric bill  is collect the money by using tax money collected on behalf of the PA (yes, they had to do the collecting, too) to offset debts owed by the PA at the end of this month.  Israel will have to take more sanctions against the PA.  They may not give out any more passes allowing officials to travel freely through Israel, Judea and Samaria and Gaza.  

Netanyahu said he will look for other methods towards peace with the Palestinians but will not negotiate with a Hamas backed government.  It is  Iran that backs Hamas and they intend to rub out Israel.  Netanyahu doesn't want to settle for a stalemate, either.  He wants 2 states for 2 peoples solution and will seek it in some other way.  Israel is good at thinking outside  the box, so he may have something in mind already.  

These Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been going on for 9 months and were set to expire Tuesday but never made the deadline.  They were suspended last Thursday after Hamas and Fatah agreed last Wednesday (4/23/14)  to form a unity government within 5 weeks and to hold elections.  Abbas, starting his Presidency on  January 15,  2005  was to be in for 4 years but has never stepped down.  

Resource:  http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-pushes-ahead-with-palestinian-sanctions/
http://www.state.gov/j/ct/list/c14151.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah
http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Terrorist Attack on First Night of Passover in Israel Caused by Incitement

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      

The Palestinians, led by Abbas, have had a non-stop policy of inciting their Palestinian people to perform acts of murder of Israelis.  It happened under Arafat and continues to this day.  Even during the past 9 month period of peace talks, Abbas has continued inciting acts of hatred, terror promotion and glorification of such acts while all the time demanding the release of past terrorists doing time in Israeli prisons as a condition to even sit down at the table with Israelis to talk.

This week's act was reprehensible.  An Israeli Jew, 40 year old Baruch Mizrahi, his wife and children were traveling with his family to a seder (large dinner)  for the first night of Passover and were driving through Judea/Samaria, the so called West Bank to get to their destination.  He was killed and his 28 year old wife injured.  They were the 2nd of 3 cars to become under terrorist attack on the highway near Hebron (Judea) near the Beit Guvrin Junction.  They had found themselves under AK-47 fire while traveling to this point, going from west to east.  A 9 year old child in the 3rd car was injured.  The 3-car convoy were members of the same family who were also traveling to the  seder.
                                                                         
Of course Hamas terrorists in Gaza praised the killing.  Jihad terrorists also added their praise for killing a Jewish father going to a special dinner.  The IDF (Israeli Defense Force) has a large manhunt out looking for the killers.

PM Netanyahu blames the PA's policy of incitement.  Recently Abbas and PM Dr. Rami Hamdallah honored 2 suicide bombers who murdered 16 people in 2001.  Hamdallah visited the families of the 2 terrorists following Israel's transfer of their bodies to the PA.

Maher Hbeishah was a suicide bomber on a bus in Haifa on December 2, 2001 and killed 15 people and wounded about 40.

Imad Zubeidi killed 1 and wounded more than 40 on April 22, 2001 as a suicide bomber at a bus stop in Kfar Saba (near Tel Aviv).  Israel transferred their bodies to the PA last month.

Hamdallah consoled the relatives and sent condolences from PM Abbas and expressed his wishes that God grant them His Paradise and grant their families forbearance and solace.

Another PA leader glorified terrorist murderers yesterday and justified their acts of terror to the Palestinians as self defense, which is a lie.  Nobody was attacking them at the time.  Showing another side of his face, he condemned the killing of any person when speaking to Israelis.

Dr. Rami Hamadallah supported terror on March 12, 2014 and this made the next day's Al Hayat Al-Jadida newspaper.  Mahmoud Al-Habbash said, "All the Palestinian prisoners who protected our land, honor and homeland are prisoners of freedom;  they are prisoners of war.  They are not criminals, will never be and have never been.  Their hands committed no crime.  They were defending themselves.  (suicide bombers).   they are an inseparable part of this national Palestinian movement and one of its authentic foundations.  We are completely loyal to them.  (Official PA TV on March 28, 2014).

Now Israel will have to start replacing those terrorists freed with new ones in the prisons  It might even turn out that some of those freed are again captured for continued acts of terror.

No wonder there never has been a peace treaty with the Palestinians with an attitude like that.  They wear their own brand of rose-colored glasses and see things much differently than we do.  This alone keeps them in a state of being deaf and dumb to all the offers given by the Israelis in making peace.

Update 4/17/14: from Arutz Sheva:  "Hadassah Mizrahi, whose husband, Chief Superintendent Baruch Mizrahi, was murdered on Monday, described the terror attack on Channel 2 television Wednesday.
"We were driving from Modi'in to Kiryat Arba,” she said. “At the Tarkumia checkpoint, we said hello to the soldiers, and kept going. After the first roundabout, a terrorist was standing at the roadside. Baruch shouted 'A terrorist! Shooting!' and pressed the gas pedal.”
"Then I took a bullet,” she continued, calmly."  They have 5 children.  She took over the car the minute she knew her husband was dead even though she had been hit and must have driven it from the passenger side.  She was able to call the police and also the soldiers came to her aid.  

Resource: Al- Hayat Al-jadida, March 13, 2014
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc.id=11246.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/israeli-killed-in-passover-eve-terror-attack/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4510148,00.html


Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Pharisees and Sadducees of 2nd Temple and Christianity

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

                                                  King  Solomon's Temple

Moses (1391-1271 BCE) didn't just bring down 10 Commandments.  Throughout the 40 years of wandering during the Exodus, started when he was 80 years old already,   he wrote 613 more laws for the future Jews to follow till he died at age 120.  What do we Jews believe, anyway?  The ideas we have of course came from Moses, but they were also interpreted by the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Two traumatic events happened to the Jewish people.  The Assyrians attacked and carried away people in 721 BCE.  The Babylonians attacked twice; in 597 and 586 BCE.  They also carried away people.  They destroyed Solomon's Temple.

The Jews rebuilt the Temple.  During the 2nd Temple period from 538 to 515 BCE, there appeared a political party as well as a religious one, the Pharisees (the lenient ones) , who were probably a continuation of the Hasideans, a pious Jewish religous sect.  It was first recorded during the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes in the 2nd century BCE when its member suffered martyrdom rather than desecrate the Sabbath and formed the backbone of the Hasmonean revolt.  .  They were a fairly narrow body and kept a closed membership to the masses.  Their job was to teach the traditions to everyone with stories to develop a holy spirit in them.  They felt there was a huge gap of knowledge between the masses regarding  their own law and themselves and therefore the masses were not practicing it.

They sat apart from the masses in order to keep themselves pure.  In other words, they were scrupulous about keeping kosher.  They would eat with their own groups and ate only consecrated food in the Temple, or kosher food that had been prepared in the Temple kitchen.

The Pharisees put the people of Judah's life within a halakhic framework found in the Oral Law which they regarded as vital as the Written Law (the Tanakh). The oral law was the interpretations and analysis of the written law and was handed down orally from generation to generation.  It's said it also was given to Moses with the written law.   Their doctrine was to embrace the whole life of the community, touching on the theological foundations of life, questions of fate, good and evil, the immortality of the soul, and eschatology.

They admitted Divine predestination but also man's responsibility for his deeds.  They believed in life after death, the resurrection of the dead, the Messiah that they needed and the Day of Judgment.

Not all Pharisees were angels in their behavior, of course.  The Talmud lists 7 hypocritical types.  However, they "were in reality not like the derogatory New Testament picture" that paints them as terrible people.  It just so happens that "they were responsible for strengthening morality and introducing the elasticity which enabled Judaism to withstand its subsequent tribulations."

The Pharissees had the chutzpa to bring into their culture the cult-folk-customs not mentioned in the Torah, such as the Water-Drawing Festival (Simchat bet ha Shoevah), which dismayed the Sadducees.  This was a festival of water-libation observed at the end of the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles.  The Sadducees didn't want it included in their observances because it had no authority in the Pentateuch, but the people nevertheless observed it enthusiastically.  The ceremonies are elaborately described in the Mishnah under (Sukkah 5).  It fell into abeyance with the destruction of the Temple but has been revived in an altered form in modern Israel.  I can understand that any holiday involving water emergence or enjoyment would be loved in the hot land of Judah.The Pharisees have been carried into the stream of historic Judaism.

Bill O'Reilly of Fox News on TV  has written a book that carries out the derogatory essence of the New Testament. Yes, the Gospels may be sacred to Christians, but they hold a lot of anti-Semitism towards the Jews.  O'Reilly's book is "Killing Jesus," the act that the Christians have been blaming Jews for during  the past 2,000 years.  It has only been recently that Pope Benedict XVI finally forgave us, but that was the pope himself.  The masses haven't all agreed with him as yet.  The pope also wrote a book, Jesus of Nazareth."  "In 'Jesus of Nazareth' excerpts released in 2011, Benedict uses a biblical and theological analysis to explain why it is not true that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus' death.  Perhaps he still believed that some Pharisees were still responsible.  I'm not sure.  We've been suffering for this as a people  from the Crusades to the Inquisition in Spain.  All Jews have suffered from anti-Semitism and this is what has got the masses going, the death of Jesus.  From there they have managed to find all sorts of reasons why they hate Jews.  We've become the scapegoats of the world.  

Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews. " While the Vatican has for five decades taught that Jews weren't collectively responsible, Jewish scholars said recently that  the argument laid out by the German-born pontiff, who has had his share of mishaps with Jews, was significant and would help fight anti-Semitism today.  Of course O'Reilly's  main references must rely on the four Gospels which are loaded with attacking Jews.  Jesus had died on the cross, and that was something the Romans had been doing to thousands of Jewish men for any slight indiscretion to their own Roman government.  But the Christians forming a group after his death blamed the Pharisees and Sadducees for it to have happened.   This happened during Herod's time of ruling, a man who was appointed ruler over the Judeans by the Romans.

It was Pontiius Pilate who ruled in the case of Jesus.  He was a procurator, a governor of Judea under the Roman emperors and ruled from 26 to 36 CE.  As a procurator, he had full powers to inflict punishment including the death penalty, which meant to be placed on the cross.  He executed  with the cross Galilean patriots (Jewish men) without a trial and introduced Roman military standards into Jerusalem, used Temple funds for the construction of an aqueduct and maltreated the Samaritans for which he was finally recalled to Rome.  Jesus was crucified during his term of office along with thousands of other Jews.

The problem lies with the Gospels referring often to the Sadducees and Pharisees because Jesus was in constant conflict with them.  They were the ruling group of Israel in religion.  The Christians in the Gospel claim that the two groups conspired to put Jesus to death, as told in (John 11;48-50;  where it mentions that many Jews were believing in Jesus, the Romans were going to take their nation, and Caiaphas, a high priest (18-36 CE) that year said that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation would perish otherwise so he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation. Joseph Caiaphas  was appointed as high priest by the procurator, Valerius Gratus and also served under Pontius Pilate.  The New Testament represent him and his father-in-law Annas as being responsible for the prosecution of Jesus and the arrest of the apostles.  He was removed by the Syrian governor, Vitellius.  Then they (other priests ?) took counsel together to put Jesus  to death.  After that Jesus didn't walk up to the Jews anymore but went into the countryside  near the wilderness into Ephraim with his disciples.   Mark in 14:53; and 15:1), also presented anti-Semitic words  Other mentions of the Sadducees are found in Act 4:1 and Acts 5:17.  The Sadducees are implicated in the death of James by writer Josephus (Acts 12:1-2).  He was writing for a Roman audience.

The Catholics teach in their Catechism for the Catholic church that from the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, that certain Pharisees and partisans of Herod, together with priests and scribes had agreed to destroy Jesus.  The reason was that they suspected Jesus of demonic possession and accused him of blasphemy and false prophecy which were religious crimes which the Law punished with death by stoning.  It's because he had expelled demons, forgave sins, healed on the sabbath day and had his own interpretation of the Law concerning purity and had tax collectors and public sinners as friends.

In order to disassociate themselves with Jews, the new Christian leaders who wrote the Gospels did paint an ugly view of the Jews of Jesus's day on purpose, I say.  They were starting a new movement and needed followers.  They believed strongly that because Jesus had pardoned people for their sins that this was a sign that manifested him to be the Savior God himself (cf.Jn 5:16-18).  Jews did not and do not today recognize any man as G-d  so saw him only as a man who made himself to be thought of as a G-d possibly since he never came out and said he was G-d as far as they knew.    Remember, it was the Romans who had been occupying Judah  and they believed in such things as men and women who were half god and half man.  That was going on at that time.  A culture of belief in half god half man or demigods was rubbing elbows with a strict monotheistic culture and they were an invading group also spreading their belief system just by being there and most likely celebrating their festivals.  Achilles, half man an half god born from a nymph; Dionyses, son of Zeus, Jason, son of Jupiter, Hercules, son of Zeus.  All were worshipped and were men.

My problem with the accusation against the Pharissees and Sadducees is that the Gospels were written several hundred years after the fact.  What is being accused has only gossip to go by.  Even in Jewish law there has to be several witnesses.  This was an accusation that was political in order to put down Judaism and heighten Christianity.  It could have taken place without this false accusation on its own merits if they were worthy.  I do not blame the writers of the gospel for what they have laid on us Jews, for in Jesus' supposed words, "They knew not what they had done."  I blame the people since then for not having the common sense to stop blaming future generations of Jews for something they think went on so long ago.  Of course to them, it is killing their G0d or deicide.  One thing I noticed is that the Pharisees are blamed for the deaths by stoning, yet it was actually the Sadducees who were as strict as that, telling me the Gospels didn't know as much about the two political/religious groups as they thought they did.  It was the Pharisees who were the lenient ones.

"The debate really comes down to the question: When was the New Testament originally written? And this question leads to another important question: Even if it was written at an early date, how do we know the New Testament that exists today is the same as the original? How do we know the modern translations aren't full of human errors, additional content, or the interpretations of countless human scribes?"  "The earliest manuscript of the New Testament was discovered about 50 years ago. P52 is a small papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John (18:31-33 on the front; 18:37-38 on the back), and it has been dated to about 125 AD.  So that's at least 100 years after the fact.  "The manuscripts dating from 100 to 300 AD are almost entirely papyrus fragments. These fragments are named with a "P" followed by a number. The vast majority of them were found in Egypt in the twentieth century, and are now kept in various museums and libraries throughout the world, including at Dublin, Ann Arbor, Cologny (Switzerland), the Vatican and Vienna." Pieces that they have found considered important were from 300, 350 and 450 CE.  John, so profoundly anti-Semitic, also was different from the other renditions in that  throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus openly presents himself as the divine Son of God, not hiding his identity as he does in Mark.  So people reading this Gospel get the double whammy; Jews killed their G0d.  

Right around Easter, some actors usually put on a Passion Play.  After seeing this, many people are imbued with hatred for Jews and want to kill or maim someone.  Hopefully this book of O'Reilly's will not have the same intention or results.  

The Pharisees had been  in competition with the Sadducees. (the strict ones)   The Sadducees had absolute control of the Temple.  Many feel the Sadducees were incapable of adapting to a changing environment while the Pharisees admitted the principle of evolution in their legal decisions.  Remember, this was at least 2,044 years ago and they had decisions to make like that.  The Sanhedrin's seats were taken mostly by the Sadducees.  They worked at keeping the peace with the Romans, who were the occupiers.

The Sadducees stuck with the letter of the written text.  Their name seems to have come from the high priest Zadok whose descendants served in the same office until 162 BCE.  Evidently the well connected priests and prominent aristocrats belonged to the Sadducees, who were thus influential in political and economic life.  To them the Jewish religion was the Temple cult . They differed from the Pharisees in the nature of their religious outlook and way of life.  In their view, people must aspire to well-being in their world without expecting recompense in the world to come. They had no belief in a future world like resurrection, or the immortality of the soul and also rejected the existence of angels and spirits.  They were purists.  They stuck with the Written Law and allowed no more expansion on that. So did the Essenes.   So they behaved severely in cases involving the capital penalty and they interpreted the Lex Talionis ( eye for an eye punishment)  literally instead of in the sense of monetary compensation which was adopted by the Pharisees.
Their beliefs were carried out in the Temple where they had the role of priests and they opposed the Pharisaic innovation like the Water-Drawing Festival.  This might have given a foothold to non-sacerdotal circles.  They were the supporters of the Hasmonean kings from the reign of John Hyreanus, but they lost their influence under Salome Alexandra and suffered at the hands of Herod.  Their whole power and existence was bound up with the Temple cult, and on the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE they disappeared.

The one thing they all agreed upon was that there was but ONE G-d.  At this point in time, all the other points of the religion were being debated.  It would take another 1,000 years for a rabbinical scholar to emerge and straighten out our religion for us, for Rashi was born in 1040 in Troyes, France and became so well known for his dissertations.  He wrote a commentary on the Bible, the Jewish Tanakh.

 Joseph Caro, who wrote the Shulhan Arukh, (Prepared Table) or table of laws  in 1564-65,  is another man who set the record straight as we observe Judaism today with his codes.  He was born in 1488 in Toledo, Spain and died in 1575.  The Spanish Inquisition occurred in 1492, so he ultimately found his way to the Holy Land.  He lived in Safed, where one can visit his synagogue today.  His writing became the authoritative code.  This rabbi was interested in Kabbalah.  The Pharisees had won out after all.  .

References: http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Jesus-Bill-OReilly/dp/0805098542/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396460615&sr=1-1&keywords=killing+jesus+bill+o%27reilly
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/pope-exonerates-jews-for-death-of-jesus-1.346699
http://dictionary.infoplease.com/lex-talionis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_demigods
http://greece.mrdonn.org/greekgods/hercules.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/04/sanhedrin-court-of-ancient-israel.html
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/features/new_testament_manuscripts.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberammergau_Passion_Play
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Catechism of the Catholic church online
New Testament "Holy Bible" The World Publishing company, Cleveland and New York, King James Version




Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Peace Talks Amounted to Blackmail and Bribery: March 31st Deadline Missed

Nadene Goldfoot                                                           

                                                     Mahmoud Abbas
Abbas, head of the PA Arabs, has to be bribed to sit and talk with Netanyahu and his contingent about peace.  The Arabs have insisted that they will not sit unless 104 Arab criminals, most serving life sentences for murder,  were released from Israeli prisons.  The Israelis have complied, because peace is their goal, by already releasing 78,  but this has brought on much hand-wringing as the criminals were killers, responsible for many horrible crimes.  To release them was almost like a future death  knoll for other Israelis to be facing.  That was asking a lot.  Left to be released of this Arab-preferred group are 26 more.  Most all have served 20 years already.

Alan Dershowitz, an American lawyer, had occasion to advise Obama to at least throw in Pollard's release for the Israelis in order to get Israel to go ahead and finish by freeing the 26 left. " One of the 26 had murdered a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Israel after his family died in the Nazi death camps.

Pollard is an American Jew who is in prison for being a spy for Israel, though Israel didn't hire him.  It was something he had in his own sites to do for Israel, who presumably was a friend of the USA anyway.

John Kerry, US Secretary of State, was just in Israel and spoke with Netanyahu without talking to Abbas.  He's now in Brussels but may speak with him on his way back.

Pollard is eligible to be  released in November 2015 after serving 30 years of a life sentence.  Is is really a balanced trade to use Pollard as a bargaining chip versus 26 killers?  To wave Pollard's freedom in front of Netanyahu to extend the talks ,  that are going nowhere is not worth the act of freeing terrorists.  It only is causing  the Israeli public to be horrified since there is no assurance that once the criminals are freed that the PA will continue to sit since they seem to need a carrot dangling constantly.  Already there is talk of an unofficial building freeze in Judea and Samaria in exchange for Pollard.  We don't know who is talking about it, the PA, Kerry or Israel.  It may be the next carrot to dangle in front of the Arabs to sit still and listen and talk in a conversation about peace, at least.

Senior PA leader Nabil Shaath was heard to say that "due to the prisoners we haven't stopped negotiations. We blackmailed  Israel to release the prisoners." One of the prisoners is Abu-Musa Salam Ali Atia, a Gaza resident and member of Fatah who was convicted of murdering Holocaust survivor Isaac Rotenburg as part of an initiation into a Palestinian terror group.  Rotenburg was working in 1994 when he was attacked by 2 Palestinians laborers with axes.

They are saying that they threatened to have Israel prosecuted at the International Criminal Court.  What they want them prosecuted about doesn't matter.  The UN holds Israel up to much higher standards than any other country in the world.  All they do is berate Israel in their meetings in the Human Rights Council, so they can make up any story and others will buy into it.  The PA already has the membership in the UN they were seeking so have the power to do so.  Nabil Shaath has said now that they are just waiting for the prisoners to be released before they stop the negotiations.  This tells us that the current round of peace talks might have just been a game-a charade with them.

Now in many countries, such murderers that Israel has in their prisons would have been shot in about 3 days after being picked up.  However, Israel doesn't have the death sentence.  So now they have become a bargaining chip.  So much for being moralistic and doing away with a death sentence.  Right now haggling over the release of this last 4th batch is going on since they all missed the Saturday, March 31st deadline set by Kerry.  "Netanyahu said that Israel would not make a deal to free the prisoners "without a clear benefit for Israel in return."  Evidently that's why Kerry is using Pollard as bait.  

"An Israeli official said that the Palestinians also did not live up to their commitments under the framework, including to engage in serious and good faith negotiations."  As I have said before, I do not not believe that the PA has peace as a goal.  They're just going along with the charter that Hamas has, but attacks in their won way against Israel with the same goal to destroy Israel.  They don't want to start from scratch to create a state they can't administer anyway.  It's much easier to take over Israel and use it until it falls apart, such as the land was when Jews returned to it.  

To make matters even more convoluted, the PA is now demanding the release of 14 Israeli Arabs. .  "The Israeli government has so far refused to consider freeing Israeli citizens convicted of terrorist acts."  There is confusing information from a radio report that Israel would free 400 prisoners if they were to remain in Judea-Samaria, but Netanyahu's office is nixing that idea.  Rumors.  Innuendos.  Not facts.  

Israeli citizens that are victims of terror have demonstrated already and are blaming the USA. 

They feel that Kerry has an agenda that is promoting peace in the Middle East and in order to carry it out has somehow pressured or even blackmailed the PM of Israel into releasing terrorists,  said Yossi Zur, spokesperson for the victims as he talked to the Washington Free Beacon.  The US officials have emphasized over and over that they want negotiations without preconditions, but they finally gave in and surrendered to this precondition of releasing terrorists.  One wonders what it would take to release the Boston terrorist who attacked the Boston marathon?  Multiply him by 104 and under what conditions would the USA free them all?  Would there be a solid guarantee that it was worth it attached?  

Update is that Pollard was to be freed if Israel freed 400 more prisoners;  one for 400.  Johanathan was a mentch in that he himself  is not going for it.  He waived his parole hearing to oppose the deal.  "The proposed deal was also sharply criticized by Judea and Samaria's Yesha Council as being a "disgraceful" case of "Arab blackmail and American bribery." 

Resource:  http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/scoreboard-12-hours-2-meetings-for-bibi-kerry-0-for-abbas/2014/04/01/
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/obamas-bribery-and-emotional-blackmail-to-sell-pollard-and-buy-time/2014/04/01/
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=820
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=11142
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Netanyahu-No-deal-to-release-prisoners-without-clear-benefit-for-Israel-346906
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/world/middleeast/netanyahu-agrees-to-free-104-palestinians.html?_r=0
http://freebeacon.com/issues/palestinian-murderers-terrorists-released-ahead-of-peace-talks/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard
Update: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/179154#.Uzr_i6hdU8o