There is really absolutely nothing to be said about the “direct” peace talks that resumed today in Sharm ash Sheikh.
George Mitchell told journalists things are moving in the “right direction”. He is now about to be sent to Syria, which is what always happens when there is a stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian track…
There may, or may not have been, extra meetings in the evening.
The official Egyptian media “photoshopped” an official photo showing the heads of the five delegations in attendance walking purposefully down a red carpet (like a movie premier, or, even more, like a movie promo shot) with U.S. President Barack Obama striding ahead in the lead. In the Egyptian official press, Mubarak was in the lead (not Obama).
Highway One was closed at various points in the evening as the Israeli Prime Minister, and later as the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, touched down at Ben Gurion Airport after their flights over the West Bank to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. [The general public was told they could take Road 443, which has been ruined by the IDF’s putting a whole series of new checkpoints along that road, which was — for a while — the most efficient way to travel between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, until the IDF interpretation of the Supreme Court’s ruling to allow Palestinian traffic on that road after a ban of ten years was interpreted literally by the Army to mean that Palestinians could drive only between the limits of the checkpoints, which now show, by their demarcation, what was not clear before — which is just exactly where Road 443 passes through the West Bank.]
The Jerusalem talks on Wednesday will be in Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s “home”. No, this is not a replay of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat’s invitation to then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s home in some community north of Tel Aviv at the time [before the Camp David talks fiasco], when Barak’s then-wife cooked for Arafat… Wedneday’s talks will be at the Prime Minister’s Official Residence, and butlers and a whole staff of skilled personnel will make the atmosphere just like…a hotel.